


Strong Enough

by satonawall



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, famous people au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 46,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5370218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satonawall/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on <a href="http://glee-kink-meme.livejournal.com/50716.html?thread=63881756">this GKM prompt</a>: Santana Lopez is an upcoming actress whose slimy manager/PR guy Will Schuester gets her a fake relationship with successful pop star Brittany S. Pearce to boost her profile. The only problem is that Brittany does not know it's fake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's so nice to be working on Brittana fic again! This fic is finished although unedited, so updates should be regular (every week).
> 
> The title is from ABBA's _Take a Chance on Me_.

William Schuester tried to find a more comfortable position on the chair. Knowing Sue, she had probably chosen uncomfortable chairs on purpose.

“Yes,” he said. “She’ll agree to that. It won’t be a problem.”

It better not be, at least. Santana was a talented girl, certainly, but Will had definitely had easier clients. He had a tried and tested formula for marketing smoking hot Latina women who knocked on his door, having already been rejected from many other (indubitably less supporting) agencies, and it would have worked this time, too, maybe even better than usually since Santana had more talent than most of the people who used Will’s services.

It was just that insisting on nude photo shoots for _Maxim_ and _Playboy_ and organising dates with muscly action blockbuster actors (or at least their stuntmen) usually worked a lot better when your client agreed to do them, however begrudgingly, and didn’t put her foot down and absolutely insist on coming out so early in their career and not agreeing to even the barest hint of a rumour about a male co-star.

He could have made her a star, if she’d only let him.

As it stood now, though, Will didn’t quit just because the job was a little harder, of course not. He was very committed to promoting diversity, and having a prominent Latina lesbian as a client would be great for the image he wanted to broadcast of himself and his professional goals.

Even if it meant he had to negotiate with Sue Sylvester.

“It’s your problem, anyway,” Sue was saying. “And your little starlet better bring it on the acting department, Will Schuester, because I promised Brittany that she wouldn’t have to date for publicity anymore. If she finds out and the deal becomes null, it’s your fault and I will get back at you. I have several unscrupulous US generals on speed dial.”

Will looked down at the papers Sue had given him. It was probably written there, in a footnote.

“I’m sure Santana can handle it,” he said. “You book the table and I’ll let her know when to be there.”

Sue said something about munchkins, but it was probably all about Will’s hair and not relevant to the deal, so Will did his best not to pay any attention to it.

—

Santana puckered her lips and looked in the mirror.

Light make-up. She had a feeling Brittany might be the type to like that; her looks definitely would have allowed for that all-American girl persona, even if her public image had gone decidedly in the other direction.

And in any case, if it was all arranged by their PR teams, what were the odds that Brittany would turn her down anyway?

It was still kind of exciting, even if it wasn’t for real. Santana had had a recurring semi fan favourite role in a sitcom for a little over a year, and her performance as one of the jealous bridesmaids in the past month’s hottest boring straight romcom had been dubbed as a scene stealer by more than a few critics, so she was no stranger to being in the vicinity of great celebrities, but still. Dating Brittany S. Pierce for publicity (Santana) and public image improvement (Brittany) was something Santana was quite sure had actually happened to her once in a dream, and while that wasn’t one of those dreams she’d been intent on making come true, it was still…

Wow. It was still pretty damn cool.

And Santana had never been one to not look her best when she had a date with a hot girl.

She had to discard a few outfits because they reminded her of something Brittany had worn for her latest music video (considering that the premise of the video had essentially been a fashion show, it was minor miracle that it was only a few); that would only be tacky. Eventually, though, she settled for one of her red mini dresses that was far more comfortable than it looked, and then it was out the door and into the car. She’d never been one to keep a hot girl waiting, either.

The restaurant was trendy, packed with celebrities and surrounded by paparazzi. It was kind of an obvious place to be seen, which told Santana something of her and Brittany’s combined PR team’s capability for sneakiness, but they did serve great breadsticks that you could have as much as you wanted.

She was the first one to arrive, and ordered a drink while she waited.

It was kind of surreal, she thought as she watched the bartender mix it for her. Not just fake-dating Brittany, even though that was plenty surreal in and of itself. If you’d told the fourteen-year-old Santana who’d cried for an hour after realising she’d actually really liked kissing another girl in a game of Spin the Bottle that one day an actual Hollywood PR manager would be setting her up with a famous woman who was going to date a woman to get rid of her bad reputation, she wouldn’t have believed it.

But there she was, just waiting for it to come true.

Maybe five minutes later, when she was turning her head away from the man on her right who obviously thought he might have a chance with her, she spotted Brittany coming in.

Known for her eclectic fashion choices (fashion magazines said she had a team of stylists who’d carefully come up with a controversial style for her, but it had always felt to Santana like Brittany had just never learnt to dress conventionally because she could pull off anything), Brittany didn’t disappoint: even from the other side of the room, Santana could see that her dress was made of aquarium themed fabric that Brittany had paired with strawberry earrings that Luna Lovegood would have been proud of.

As usual, she looked radiant.

The waiter came to Santana to announce Brittany’s arrival, and escorted them to their table, right in the middle of the room, easily visible from all directions and most definitely chosen by someone who didn’t realise they’d need to talk over the noisiness of the room to communicate.

“Hey,” Santana said as the waiter left to fetch them water.

“I’ve watched your movie while crying into ice cream.” Brittany flashed her a smile. “First dates are always awkward. I thought I just might go with it.”

Santana laughed. Well, the rumours about Brittany being just another diva at least seemed profoundly unfounded.

“In the interest of full disclosure,” she leaned towards Brittany so that she wouldn’t have to shout, “all of your singles are on my ‘boring household chores’ dance playlist.”

Brittany’s second smile was surprised but undoubtedly pleased.

“I like you,” she said. “I don’t usually like the people Sue wants me to like, but then again it’s different now.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Santana looked down at the entree menu. “This is the first time I’ve let anyone arrange a date for me.”

“Usually it sucks.” Brittany pursed her lips. “Sue always told me to date these buffy men who’d never realised that heart is a muscle, too. And then when I went on a few dates with one of my back-up dancers Sue told me that I shouldn’t tell anyone about her, which I guess went kind of well because she got a better contract and dumped me.”

“Wow, that’s harsh.” She gave Brittany a sympathetic look. “I fought with my PR guy for like five hours before I threatened to come out on Twitter right then if he tried to argue about it anymore.”

It was far more personal information than she’d have expected to be sharing five minutes into a fake date, but there was just something about Brittany that made her speak and want to never shut up, except to listen to what Brittany was saying in return.

If Brittany had been into acting, they probably would have had amazing chemistry onscreen.

“I just kind of let it slip,” Brittany said. “I was just listing all the things I am in this one quiz I was asked to do, and I was going to say bicorn but then I realised I was the only one in on the joke so I just said bi, and the next thing I knew everyone was fussing about and the next day Sue told me I had to date a linebacker.” Her mouth curved in distaste. “He always smelled of socks and sweat and when Sue said we could break up he told everyone it was because I cheated.”

Santana had a vague memory of something like that.

“Isn’t that the guy who got fired for steroid use just a few months later?”

“Yeah.” Brittany flashed her a sweet smile. “The universe always balances itself out.”

Santana thought back to all of the gross, sweaty football players she’d dated as a miserable closeted-even-to-herself high schooler, then looked at Brittany and smiled back. “Yeah, it tends to do that.”

They ordered their entrées and the waiter came back with their drinks, red wine for Santana and pineapple juice with a paper umbrella and a straw for Brittany.

“Doesn’t that make your mouth feel weird?” Santana asked as Brittany took a sip of her glass, ignoring the straw. “I can never eat even one slice of pineapple, my mouth gets really sore.”

“No,” Brittany said. “But then again I thought that pineapples were water plants until someone laughed at me for it in high school so maybe I’ve just been eating them wrong.”

“Canned pineapple is a different thing.” Santana shrugged. “I can eat that however much I want, but fresh, it’s just kind of-“

She made a face to illustrate.

Brittany looked at the glass as if she was seizing up its contents. “I stopped drinking with the straw when I realised that all the people Sue wanted me to date would make jokes about it that I didn’t like, but you’re different so-“

Slowly, she reached forwards, caught the upper end of the straw in her mouth and sucked some of the juice into her mouth.

Santana took a sip of her own glass, looking away.

They picked up a conversation on music videos; Santana had an upcoming job acting in one and Brittany was just choosing the songs for her next album and thinking about dance moves to go with them.

“Wow,” Santana said as Brittany finished explaining a choreography she’d been toying with and how it would go nicely with “the waves of the song”. “I never realised you know this much about dancing. I mean, I have eyes, I could see you were great at it, just the-“

“No one ever reads the little text that says I chose the moves,” Brittany said, cutting off a piece of her steak. “It’s okay.”

Santana got the feeling that it wasn’t quite that simple. “You’re really talented,” she said. Flattery was always a great way to get over some residual hurt, right? “Have you considered choreographing for others, too?”

The question obviously cheered Brittany up.

“Pop stars are like flowers,” she said. “Making others dance is where my roots are so that I won’t die after the summer is over.”

It was a blunter reply than Santana had expected, but then again, Brittany had been in the business for years; it made sense she’d thought of a back-up plan.

“You definitely aren’t going to die with moves like that,” she said, smiling at Brittany. “You might even keep a couple flowers alive longer than the natural cycle.”

Brittany was blushing a little as she looked down at her plate; Santana chalked that up to the compliment.

“That’s really nice of an evergreen to say.”

If this had been an actual date and Santana had had at least a few weeks of flirting with Brittany behind her, she’d have brushed her foot against Brittany’s under the table.

“That’s the dream, isn’t it?”

“Dreams make the world,” Brittany said, and after a short silence began talking about tomatoes.

—

They stayed at the restaurant until most of the diners (and, along with them, most of the paparazzi) had left, but since Brittany was the one of them with actual experience of dating for publicity, Santana thought it prudent to follow her lead.

Besides, it was a genuinely fun evening. Schuester could have set her up with someone far more distasteful.

“We should probably call taxis,” Brittany said finally, looking at her phone, still on the table from when they’d exchanged numbers. “I need to meet my producer tomorrow and she can smell second-hand alcohol.”

Santana glanced at the elaborate clock adorning the wall. Past ten.

“Yeah,” she said.

It was supposed to be a first date, so taking separate taxis seemed more natural. Brittany’s came first, and she turned to Santana, squeezing her hand surprisingly discreetly.

“If it wasn’t for those men with the cameras on the other side of the road thinking we haven’t noticed them, I’d ask if I could kiss you.”

Santana glanced to that direction, and true enough, there were still a couple hopefuls waiting for late night bad behaviour.

“You could anyway,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

Kissing on a first date was completely standard, anyway, it wouldn’t raise any red flags or give them a reputation as totally u-hauling it.

Brittany bit her lip.

“I don’t kiss on camera if it’s real,” she said. “I always had to do it with those publicity dates Sue set up, but this is not one of them so-“ She smiled, moving towards the taxi and waving at Santana. “Maybe when we’ll do this again?”

“Yeah,” Santana said, out of reflex more than anything, suddenly frozen on the spot. “When we’ll do this again.”

—

She waited until ten am the following morning, which should have earned her an Oscar for Patience and Consideration, before marching into her management’s offices and pulling open Will Schuester’s door with such force that she was almost surprised it didn’t come off its hinges.

“She didn’t know it was a set-up,” she said as she’d banged it closed with at least equal force, glaring down at Schuester by his desk. “She thought her manager had just set her up on a blind date.”

“Did you tell her?” Schuester asked, sounding irritatingly calm.

“No, she only said it right before she left, I didn’t have the time to-“

“Good.” Schuester set aside the papers he’d been reading. “Sue said that Brittany doesn’t want to do PR dating anymore, but it’s in your best interests, for both of you, to date, so we had to come up with a little ruse.”

“You lied to her.” Santana began pacing the office. “You lied to her, and she was just an utter sweetheart and I think she likes me, for real.”

“That’s wonderful,” Schuester said. “She doesn’t need to know, Santana. You’re a very talented actress, surely you’d like a little practice doing romantic scenes with someone of your preferred-“

“She’s not acting!” Santana wanted to kick Schuester’s desk, but it was actual hardwood and it would hurt her more than harm the desk. “I’m going to tell her, and next I’m going to damn well fire-“

Schuester didn’t stop smiling, that annoying, condescending smile like he thought he’d hung the moon and all the stars with it, in the metaphorical sense.

“Think about how crushed she’d be if you did,” he said. “She had a marvellous date last night, and I’m sure she went home with butterflies in her stomach thinking that might be the beginning of a wonderful relationship after all the disasters that have filled gossip columns for the past few years. How would she feel if you now went to her to tell her that it was all an act and that you don’t actually care for her at all?”

Santana stopped pacing.

“She’d probably feel better if she finds out now than if she finds out later when she’s fallen for me hook, line and sinker.”

“She doesn’t need to know.” Schuester picked up a pile of papers again. “You could just date her for a few months, and then you’ll break up. It’s clear from her relationship history she cannot keep up a relationship anyway, nothing will seem more natural.”

“That’s because all of those relationships were fak-“ But what was theirs that would have been any better? She couldn’t deny that if there was a way to avoid hurting Brittany’s feelings, she’d prefer to take it. “I hope one day someone will switch your hair gel with superglue and burn holes in all of your vests.”

“Tut, tut,” Schuester said. “I got a preliminary call about a big audition yesterday. You’d be wise not to insult me so much that I forget to pick up the next time.”

“What audition?”

“The lovely lady on the other end didn’t say.” Schuester smiled. It looked constipated. “But she was from Beiste Productions.”

Santana’s heartbeat quickened just hearing the name. She didn’t know what Schuester meant by ‘big audition’, but even if it was just a recurring role, the company was known for quality series and marketed itself as the diverse company, which as far as Santana could tell was both self-congratulatory _and_ accurate.

She’d do a lot more than put up with William Schuester to get a role in one of their TV series.

“I’ll call you if I hear anything else,” were Schuester’s parting words. “You better hurry so you’re not late to your photo shoot today.”

Santana was already on the street when she realised he’d effectively railroaded her into keeping it up with Brittany.

It would be just a short fling, she told herself. She’d have to show Brittany she was not the dream, and that reality was grim and something Brittany wanted no part of. If Brittany didn’t know why they were doing it, she’d have no reason to stick around after things went sour.


	2. Chapter 2

“Tilt your head a little to the lef- Yes, keep that, that’s great!”

Santana craned her head and smiled while repeating every curse word in every language she’d ever known inside her head. Photographers were sadists, but that was nothing new.

Mercifully, that was the last pose before a break, and Santana stretched her neck as she made her way onto her chair.

Brittany had tried to call her, and Santana crushed the guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach and ignored it instead of calling her back.

She’d just had the time to almost put her phone back in her bag and say something to the make-up artist when the phone rang again.

“You can take that,” the make-up artist said. “I don’t think I need to fix anything.”

It was Brittany again.

Suppressing her sigh, Santana accepted the call.

“Hi, Brittany.”

“Hi!” There was a meow of a cat in the background, and Santana remembered Brittany mentioning she had one. “Is this a bad time, because I can call again.”

“No,” Santana said and bit her lip. “I’m doing a photo shoot, but we’re taking a break now.”

“It’s not a long thing anyway.” There was another meow. “Lord Tubbington is saying that when he was young he always smoked cigars when supervising photo shoots, but he’s lying. They were just cigarettes.”

Santana laughed; what else could she do?

“But I didn’t call about that.” A short pause, and Santana could all too well imagine Brittany gathering courage. The guilty feeling came back with a vengeance, if it had ever really gone away. “Do you want to go to the Rihanna concert tonight with me? They offered me tickets but going alone is boring and my assistant has a poetry recital she can’t miss.”

Santana smiled against her will and told herself there were plenty of ways to be rude and unlikeable in a concert.

“Sure,” she said. “Just tell me where and when.”

—

“It’s been so long since I was in a concert last time,” Santana said, quietly to be mindful of the other people around them. “And it was when I still did waitressing in between auditions, so the seats definitely were not this good.”

If there had been seats at all; she was quite sure the last time she’d been in a concert it had been at the back of a huge stadium, so far away that the only way she could see anything of the performer had been through the screen.

“It’s better from the stage.” Brittany tapped her foot along to the beat. “But you don’t get to sit if you’re performing, and you sweat a lot more.”

Santana looked around at the enormous masses of people, all or at least most focused on the stage. “Isn’t it nerve-wracking? I mean, I can speak in front of crowds just fine, but-“ She bit her lip. “Thousands of people, watching you for over an hour waiting to be entertained? That must be tough.”

It was different for acting; there was a huge number of crew members, yes, but they weren’t just- looking at her, for the most part, they had their own jobs to do. And takes lasted minutes instead of hours.

Maybe doing theatre would be more similar to Brittany’s usual shows, but Santana hadn’t had a theatre part since high school.

“I just usually think everyone’s a bunny,” Brittany said. “It helps. Bunnies are sweet and nice and they like you as long as you don’t bathe them and almost kill them.”

“I need to remember that if I ever decide to do stand-up comedy or theatre.”

“You would be great in a musical.” Brittany’s hand brushed against Santana’s from where they were both keeping them close to the hand rest between them. “You sounded really nice when we sang along.”

Santana felt blood rush to her cheeks and averted her eyes. “That’s high praise from you.”

“Low praise doesn’t really have any point,” Brittany said and took Santana’s hand as they both focused on the performance yet again.

They were still holding hands – Santana didn’t know how to tactfully stop it – when they walked out.

“I was also invited to a party to go with the concert,” Brittany said. “Wanna go? I think the main point is to brag about your dance moves to other people who also thinks they have the best dance moves, but it’s still fun.”

“Are you sure you don’t just want to show off?” Santana nudged gently at Brittany’s side. “Because _Entertainment Weekly_ says you have the best moves.”

“They’re kind of wrong because they only look when they feel like it.” Brittany squeezed her hand and smiled brightly at Santana. “But I do want to show off to you. Dancing is the best with the right person.”

Santana ducked her head and laughed, and before she even realised it, they were on their way to the party.

“Doesn’t that burn your throat?” Brittany asked when Santana ordered a tequila shot.

“I practiced a lot in high school to shut up my Mexican neighbour.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“It kind of does, but I like it.” Santana nodded towards the glass of mango juice without ice Brittany had got. “No pineapple?”

“I like to change fruits because then it becomes multivitamin juice in my stomach.”

“There you go,” the bartender said, bringing Santana the glass, salt and lime.

Brittany watched as Santana took the shot and downed her own drink as if inspired.

“Can we dance now?”

“That’s why I took something I don’t need to carry with me,” Santana said and allowed Brittany to pull her to the dance floor.

She’d always liked dancing, but she’d never really had much passion for it. Maybe it really was because of the partner, she thought as Brittany moved against her like there was no one else around.

It was fun, and the shot had been just enough to lower her inhibitions to be able to not overthink it while not yet affecting her coordination.

“I was right,” Brittany said as she moved so that her mouth was close to Santana’s ear. “It’s really all about the person.”

She laughed and almost accidentally stepped on Brittany’s foot. “You’re a pretty great person, too,” she said, even though it was possible that Brittany didn’t hear it from the music.

They took a break when they started to break sweat, had another round of drinks, did people-watching whispering in each other’s ear and giggling, and eventually ended up back on the dance floor, which was even more packed than it had been earlier.

“I can barely move,” Santana said, her hips almost flush against Brittany’s.

“They really should put on a slow song.” Brittany threw her arms around Santana’s neck. “That’s the only kind of dance you can do here right now.”

Santana laughed, her hands on Brittany’s waist, and they just looked at each other for what felt like a long time but was probably just seconds, feet not moving, until Santana leaned forwards slowly, carefully, and Brittany moved a bit towards her but still allowed Santana to be the one to close the gap between their lips.

She probably still tasted like alcohol when Brittany’s tongue pushed between her lips, but Brittany didn’t seem to mind as she pulled Santana closer, if that was even possible. The people around them were still moving to the music, not even giving them any space, but Santana couldn’t really bring herself to care about that.

She couldn’t really bring herself to care about anything but Brittany’s lips on hers.

It was only when she’d waved Brittany goodbye in front of her apartment building, lips still red from the kisses at the party (and in the taxi), that what she’d done that evening was probably the polar opposite of what she’d meant to do when she’d said yes to the invitation.

—

Her wake-up call the next morning was her cell phone’s email notification, going off in quick succession at least five times before she forced herself to get out of bed to check it.

They were all from Will Schuester, with stupid congratulatory headings and links to various gossip sites that had various pictures of her and Brittany from last night. Santana counted three mentions of gal pals and four comments to male readers to rank their combined hotness before she shoved her phone away.

Waking herself up properly with coffee was followed by the realisation that she had a developing headache, and since she’d only had two shots the previous night she could only assume that it was karmic justice for the previous night.

—

They had dinner a couple more times, and Santana’s Twitter following increased by over one third.

Whatever misgivings she had about Schuester’s plan, at least she couldn’t claim that it wasn’t working.

And maybe she’d have been more affronted by all of it if it hadn’t just been so incredibly easy to incorporate Brittany into her life.

“I have fifteen minutes before my stylist gets here,” Brittany said from her screen, following as Santana debated between two necklaces. “Should I use it by petting Lord Tubbington because I can’t when she and her people come or by talking to you because I’m pretty sure they seated us in different tables and I only know my name in sign language and you already know it too?”

“You could do both.” Santana pursed her lips and decided on the simple silver chain. “You don’t really use your hands when you’re on Skype with someone.”

“True.”

There was a series of noises which Santana assumed to be the ones required to call for Lord Tubbington – they were yet to be officially introduced, not in person, but she wasn’t really surprised one of the sounds closely resembled an elephant – and then a quiet meow as Lord Tubbington settled in Brittany’s lap.

“All that purring reminds me of my family’s old neighbours’ cat,” Santana said after a few minutes.

“Sounds like a really nice cat.”

“She wasn’t.” Santana had to laugh at the memories. “The only person allowed to even touch her was the family’s grandmother, she spat and clawed at everyone else, but when she got in that old lady’s lap, she was like a sewing machine with the purring.”

“She probably got less clothes done than a sewing machine, though.”

“Probably.”

They chatted like that until Brittany’s stylist team arrived and Santana had to go off to meet with hers.

“I’ll see you after the red carpet,” Brittany said by a way of goodbyes and it was only after Santana had closed her laptop that she realised how happy it would make Schuester to see a picture of the two of them together going to the event.

She couldn’t say for sure if that had any effect on her decisions, but when she waved at Brittany from across the crowd, it was only inside the main hall where there were notably fewer cameras.

They had indeed been seated at different tables, but by a stroke of luck they were right next to each other, so if both of them pulled their chairs back as far as they could, they could hear each other without shouting.

It was an unforeseen mercy, because the event itself turned out to be deadly dull.

“Why did we both think coming here was a good idea?” Santana whispered to Brittany as a bald man on stage went on and on about his glory days as a boxer.

Brittany’s breath ghosted against Santana’s ear as she spoke. “They always have really good cakes for dessert.”

Santana glanced back at her plate, where the filet mignon was rapidly cooling down and would become very unpleasant to eat if she wouldn’t tend to it soon enough.

“If only we could eat and speak at the same time.”

“I’d love to have a second mouth,” Brittany said as the bald man made everyone else let out an awkward chuckle.

The cake, at least, was as good as Brittany remembered it to be, and Santana cursed the fact that you couldn’t get another serving in her mind for the duration of the next speech. After that, mercifully, came a pause. The woman on her right picked up a conversation on charitable efforts and Santana got swept up in a heated but polite argument about it, only realising that Brittany wasn’t on her seat anymore when she looked around looking for inspiration for an example to illustrate her point.

“Excuse me,” she said as soon as she could without conceding defeat and got up.

Brittany, when Santana finally spotted her, was deep in discussion with someone Santana thought was a big-shot music producer. It didn’t seem like the type of conversation you should carelessly crash, so to avoid looking weird in case her table neighbour was watching, Santana made her way to the restrooms.

She powdered her nose, if only because actually doing so amused her, and was just about to leave when the blonde who’d been washing her hands a few sinks over spoke to her.

“Excuse me, you’re Santana Lopez, aren’t you?”

Santana put on her nice smile and turned to the blonde. “That’s me. I’m sorry, I don’t think I-“

She almost crossed her fingers. Please don’t be an upcoming diva, please don’t be an upcom-

“I’d be surprised if you did.” The blonde smiled. Thank god. “Quinn Fabray, I rep actors, do PR, the like.”

“Oh.” Santana kept up her nice smile. The sort of person who it could be useful to be in good terms with, one day. It was worth a moment, if for no other reason but because Quinn could probably do a lot of damage if she got snubbed, if she was so inclined. “So you’re one of the people who make people like me actually look good?”

Quinn laughed. “I prefer to think of it as the best way to get my celebrity gossip right at the source before anyone else.”

That startled a genuine laugh out of Santana. “Glad to be of use.”

Quinn finished drying her hands and they left the bathroom.

“So,” Santana said as Quinn didn’t look like she was about to leave Santana’s side, “you knew me. Was that as a bridesmaid way out of control or as the girlfriend’s weird housemate who always suggested taking body shots?”

“Neither.” Quinn flashed her a smile. “Although that scene with the rolling pin was an instant classic. One of my clients- Speak about the devil, Mercedes, hi!”

“Thank god, if I had to spend even a second more with that guy, I was really going to need my best PR girl and for all the bad reasons.”

Santana didn’t gape, mostly because just hours before she’d been recounting tales of her childhood to a pop star in pyjamas petting her cat, but still. Wow.

Modest as she had acted, Quinn Fabray had to be _someone_ if she was repping Mercedes Jones.

“Santana, this is Mercedes,” Quinn said with a small smirk. “Mercedes, I’m sure you recognise Santana.”

Santana raised an eyebrow. “Am I missing something?”

“Like I was saying,” Quinn seemed like she was enjoying herself far too much, “one of my clients likes to rewind after a hard day with YouTube videos compiling Lucia Morales’s best one-liners.”

Mercedes made a show of elbowing her before smiling at Santana, soldiering on despite her obvious embarrassment.

“She was definitely right about the oranges, though.”

“She so was!” Santana let out a laugh. “I’m sorry, it’s just such an honour to hear you’re a fan. I really enjoy your music.”

Mercedes’s embarrassment seemed to dissipate at that, and she was kind enough to let Santana talk about her favourite song and to talk about the interpretation of lyrics. It was only when the end of the break was announced that Santana forced herself to separate from Quinn and Mercedes, whose seats were on the other side of the room, and to return to her table.

Brittany was on her seat yet again, her business with the producer apparently concluded.

“I didn’t notice you leaving,” Santana said; Brittany looked a little sad. “And then when I saw you next, you looked like you had a lot to talk about with some guy.”

“He moves money around.” Brittany looked up, seeming a little cheered up. “You have to talk to him a lot before he moves it where you want it.”

“That’s-“

Another bald man (or possibly the same; Santana hadn’t paid enough attention to the first one to tell the difference) took the microphone on stage and she couldn’t finish her sentence.

They spent the latter half of the event whispering, too, but this time, Santana couldn’t help noticing she was doing a lot more of it than Brittany, who just listened to her and sometimes nodded, always returning to that slightly melancholy look she’d had when Santana had first seen her towards the end of the break.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked when the speeches finally ended and people began to slowly file out of the room.

Brittany looked past her. “Nothing.”

Taking Brittany’s hand was pure reflex. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It _is_ nothing.”

Like every other look, pouting looked great on Brittany, but it still made Santana’s stomach lurch uncomfortably. She was usually great at keeping up conflicts with people, but something about Brittany made that ability crumble away.

“If you want to talk about it…” she said and let the rest of the sentence hang unsaid between them as they walked out of the room.

They left in the same car, the driver headed towards Santana’s house first. Brittany sat on her seat, shoulders slumped and hands limp in her lap, and Santana took a deep breath and made her decision.

“Hey,” she said, sliding closer to Brittany so that their thighs were flush against each other and putting her arm around Brittany’s shoulders. “Something is wrong.”

Brittany leaned into her, but her gaze stayed fixed on a spot on the floor. “No, it’s not.”

“That’s what people say when something is wrong.”

“I’m not people. I’m Brittany.”

It should have been funny, and it would have been if it had been happening on TV instead of Santana’s actual life.

“Don’t try to quote your own songs at me.”

Brittany’s shoulders hunched even further. “Should I quote Mercedes’s songs instead?”

Oh. Santana swallowed; she hated these kinds of discussions in normal relationships, too, she didn’t even want to think about how to treat the subject in her current predicament.

“Hey,” she said, gently taking hold of Brittany’s jaw and making her look at Santana. “I’m not with Mercedes, you know.”

“You could be.” Brittany’s head didn’t move, but her eyes were evading Santana’s yet again. “I always say that I’m the prettiest and most talented of everyone, but I’m actually lying because Mercedes is prettier and more talented than me.”

“Maybe.” Santana hoped Brittany attributed her awkwardness to the situation and not to- Yeah, Brittany wasn’t paranoid, the possibility that her girlfriend was faking probably wouldn’t enter her head. “But I’m not with you because you’re pretty or because you’re talented. I’m with you because you’re Brittany. Is Mercedes Brittany?”

Slowly, a smile unfurled on Brittany’s face. “No. But Britney Spears is, and if I ever become president, it will be my first act to make it illegal to look so good when you’re over thirty.”

“Spelling matters,” Santana said and moved forwards to quickly peck Brittany on the lips.

That seemed to be the final trick needed to soothe Brittany.

“Do you want to come over?” she asked, settling more comfortably against Santana. “We can talk about how great Mercedes is and sing along to all of her records.”

Santana laughed. Almost-fights she’d been in had had worse outcomes.

“Yeah, sure.”


	3. Chapter 3

“He doesn’t bite,” Brittany said, petting at Lord Tubbington’s head.

Santana eyed the cat warily. “He looks like he does.”

Lord Tubbington had always seemed harmless to her when she’d seen him on Skype, but there in Brittany’s arms, in the flesh, he looked a lot like the second coming of Satan, except with more fur.

“He doesn’t,” Brittany repeated, this time looking down at the cat’s head. “Because if he does, I’m going to empty his secret salmon stash and that would make him very cranky, wouldn’t it, Lord Tubbington?”

Santana supposed the sound Lord Tubbington made _could_ have been just a regular meow, but to her ears it just sounded like a ferociously hungry dragon’s stomach.

She’d become very accustomed to seeing herself as the most ferocious dragon in every room she entered, and she didn’t like being threatened like that.

“He really is a very cute cat,” she said, smiling at him way too sweetly. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought he instantly looked suspicious. “And he’d look even cuter with a little cape full of bows, wouldn’t you, Lord Tubbington? Maybe if I leave with any bite marks, I’ll buy you one.”

Lord Tubbington let out some sort of mixture of hiss and meow, and Brittany petted at his head again.

“See,” she said as she let the cat down and it quickly moved away from them and into another room. “I said he doesn’t bite.”

Santana glanced back at the doorway Lord Tubbington had went through. “If you say the right things.”

During the ride to Brittany’s house, she’d prepared herself for the possibility (likelihood, really) that they wouldn’t actually get even close to the record player, but as soon as Brittany had guided Santana past the stairs and into a spacious living room, she made her way to the stereo and put on a record.

“This is my ‘boring chores’ playlist,” she said, walking back to Santana. “Although you’re not a boring chore.”

“All the better like that.” She spun Brittany around as Mercedes’s voice started on the lyrics. “We met less than a month ago, that’s a really short time to get bored of someone.”

“Everyone always tells me that I’m a little slow.”

Despite constant movements that – at least to Santana – looked fairly intense, Brittany seemed to have no trouble talking. Being an international pop star obviously had its perks.

“You’re just the right speed,” Santana said and realised only after that it would have been a great place to put her foot in her mouth and make Brittany reconsider how great Santana was and how serious she should be about their relationship.

They danced through the whole album; Santana would have needed a break if it wasn’t for Mercedes and her producers very kindly peppering the record with slower songs that they did the most ridiculous high school style slow dance routine for.

“Do you want a glass of water?” Brittany asked as the record came to an end and Santana sat down on the sofa, her chest rising and falling more rapidly than was usual.

Santana rested her head against the back of the sofa. “Yeah, that would probably be great, thanks.”

In a minute, Brittany was back with two glasses, both of which had straws in them. She offered Santana the one with the red straw and Santana laughed as she took her first sip.

“Everything tastes better when you drink it through a straw,” Brittany said.

They drank their waters as Brittany slowly but surely managed to entangle their feet where they’d both extended them along the length of the sofa.

“I really like dancing with you,” Brittany said as Santana set down her empty glass on the coffee table.

“Right back at you.

“We could do that in the other direction, too.”

Santana frowned. “What do you mean?”

Without a word, Brittany pulled away her legs away from Santana’s, stood up, moved to Santana’s end of the couch, sat down at the edge and kissed Santana, her hand bracing itself against the backrest for support.

It started as a sweet, innocent kiss – there was at least ten inches of space for the Holy Spirit in between them, after all – but it didn’t take long for Brittany to plaster herself against Santana’s side, and the next thing Santana knew, her hand was in Brittany’s hair, keeping Brittany close as Brittany’s mouth travelled down her neck.

And the next thing after that, quite a long while after but still, was when Brittany’s hand found the zipper of Santana’s dress and Santana froze.

She wouldn’t go that far down the lying rabbit hole. And it wasn’t – she had principles, no matter how many times she claimed she didn’t, and Santana Lopez would not sleep with people to get roles, not even in such a roundabout way.

“I guess no square,” Brittany said, her hand moving away from the zipper. “Standing up was really great, though.”

“I don’t- I mean-“

“You don’t need to explain.” Brittany’s hand encircled her waist, but the heat that had been building up between the two of them just moments before was gone; it was the sort of thing you would have done to reassure your cheer squad member who had a broken ankle. “And I guess it’s kind of nice. Not many people think I’m a person you can go slow with.”

Santana let out a hapless chuckle; the same went for her, and boy had everyone she’d ever turned down let her know it.

“Not many people think I’m a person who can even go slow,” she said.

“I think you’re really good at it.” Brittany kissed her cheek and Santana felt blood rush there, hot and embarrassing and hopefully not too visible. “And it doesn’t really matter but I always cheered really loudly when the tortoise won the race.”

Santana laughed, relaxing.

She did stay the night, though, cuddling against Brittany in a borrowed pyjama outfit with dancing owls on it, and couldn’t bring herself to get out of the bed when she woke up half an hour before Brittany in the morning.

—

_IDK, their all gr8_

She set the phone down next to her and did twenty more push-ups while waiting for Brittany to answer.

_Disco Inferno is the best cover. Everyone would want to go to hell if she ruled it._

Santana debated her answer for another set of sit-ups and finally answered with, _She really slays beyoncé tho_

_It’s great that Beyoncé is immortal_ , Brittany texted after a few minutes during which Santana did her stretches.

_Id watch a vampire movie abt her_

She didn’t get a reply, not even after she came out of the shower, and Santana smiled as she began dressing up. There was a chance that Brittany simply had something to do and couldn’t get to her phone, but Santana couldn’t remember anything she’d have that day so chances were Brittany had forgotten all about her phone and was vividly imagining Beyoncé as a vampire queen who held the best dance parties.

She was at least 87% Brittany was one of those people who still thought vampires sparkled.

_1 of them hangs from the ceiling like a disco ball_ , she sent.

It was only when she’d picked up her laundry and was on her way to the pharmacy that she got a new text.

_Blue Ivy only turned as an adult. Child vampires always have bad endings._

_Good thinking Brit u shud rite it_

When her phone rang, she just assumed it was Brittany, probably with a deeply philosophical question about the plot.

“Did you get traumatised by the Claudia girl too?”

“I did not read about that on the internet, so it better not be juicy.”

Santana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Schuester, of course.

“I bet there was some controversy back in 1970s when that shit came out.”

She could see in her mind’s eye how he blinked in his office, not understanding at all.

“I didn’t call you to debate,” he eventually said, practically confirming Santana’s assumption. He always changed the subject when he thought he was losing. “Are you free next Friday?”

“It’s a Friday.” Santana raised an eyebrow. “I’ll probably have a date. How so?”

“That audition I mentioned. You got it. They want you Friday morning.”

Santana stopped walking right there in the middle of the sidewalk. She was probably lucky she didn’t drop her phone.

“Really?”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

No, he had not. He pulled all kinds of crap, but flat out lying was usually not his forte. Santana was pretty sure he lacked the guts to do it.

“Did they say to prepare anything?”

When she eventually hung up on Schuester, she had a text from Brittany that she read on her way to her meeting about the music video.

_I do have the afternoon free._

—

“You can put foam parties on the list of things that are only fun on film,” Santana said, trying to brush the worst of it off her arms.

“Smile,” Denise, one of the camera operators, said as she raised her video camera at Santana, “you’re on candid camera and everything you do magically becomes funny.”

“Careful there, Denise.” Tina stepped into the room, even foamier than Santana; sometimes the life of a really dedicated frontwoman of a band sucked. “Don’t annoy the woman covered in something that could ruin your expensive equipment with one flick of a wrist.”

“I’ll tell you what you can ruin with one flick of a wrist.” But Denise was laughing as she put her camera back into its case. “Okay, I’ll leave the two of you to clean up. We’ll continue in half an hour, don’t forget!”

With that, she left.

“I’m not sure if there’s really any point trying to get this stuff off,” Santana said, looking at herself in the mirror. “We’re going to get sprayed with it anyway for the next take.”

“And then for the rest of the afternoon.” Tina laughed. “The glamorous life, huh.”

“Could be worse. At least the foam doesn’t smell.”

“You sound like someone who’s speaking from experience.”

“I’m just saying, at least none of the people here is a method actor who insists on actual garbage in the garbage chute.”

Tina snorted. “I don’t think I even want to know.”

Santana laughed. “The glamorous life sounds about right.”

“Tina?” There was a knock on the door, and then Marley stepped in. “Do you have the time to come say hi to the contest winners? I’m afraid one of them is going to throw their apple juice at me.”

“Sure.” With one last look in the mirror to fix her hair, Tina moved towards the door. “Hey, do you want to come? Like you said, trying to get this stuff off of you is kind of a waste of time.”

Santana shrugged. Meeting fans was usually fun, but meeting someone else’s fans whose opinions on her were a complete mystery was another thing. Couldn’t be that bad, though. She could use a distraction from the drying foam that was starting to feel sticky.

“Sure.”

Unsurprisingly, the fans Marley directed them to looked a lot like extras from a bad pseudo-Victorian horror film; they had, after all, won a costume contest organised by a band who described itself as ‘kind of steampunk, but solar panels over coal any day’. They all surrounded Tina like she was the maddest of all the mad scientists and they all needed their homework assignments signed off, but as it seemed to dawn to them that Tina wasn’t going anywhere right that second, a few of them came up to Santana to ask her stuff about the video while they waited their turn to speak to Tina.

It was nice. She’d definitely had worse short-term gigs, even taking into account the foam.

“I really like that corset,” said the timid girl who’d got Tina’s autograph and then hesitated a little before walking over to Santana.

“Thanks.” She stood up straighter. “Real fake whalebone, best my hard-earned gold coin can buy.”

The girl laughed, and the fake (at least, Santana dearly hoped it was fake) crow in her hat shook from the force of it.

“I just-“ the girl bit her lip, glancing back at the rest of the group, eagerly listening Tina talk about- Santana didn’t know. The concept art for the next video probably, that sounded like something that would capture the attention of these people. “I just wanted to tell you… I- I used to watch _Hunting Flats_ with my parents, and it- It meant a lot to me when I found out you were-“

Santana smiled. She was quite sure the girl would burst out crying if she had to actually say the words out loud.

“Thank you,” she said.

The girl giggled nervously, like she couldn’t quite have stop herself from doing so even if she’d wanted to. “I should be saying that.”

“No, I’m just glad to hear that I’ve been able to help someone. It’s a rocky road sometimes, it means so much to me to sometimes hear it’s made a difference to someone else.”

The girl looked like she was going to cry all over again, but then seemed to overpower the urge.

“God, I’m so sorry, I just meant to thank you and to say you and Brittany are a really cute couple, I didn’t mean to almost ruin my make-up.”

Hoping the girl couldn’t tell the difference between real and fake, Santana kept on smiling.

“Thank you, that’s really nice of you to say.” With her luck, the girl was one of those people who wrote stories on the internet. “And speaking of cute things, that crow’s pretty magnificent.”

“My aunt does props for a theatre company,” the girl said and luckily after that Tina, along with the rest of the fans, made her way to Santana and started talking about the set for the video.

—

“It’s actually easier with a real tomato,” Brittany said as the cherry tomato yet again fell off her nose and onto the floor. “Your nose fits against the green thing.”

Santana laughed, raising her feet off the floor so that she wouldn’t accidentally end up squashing any of the dropped tomatoes.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You could try, too, if you want to.” Brittany moved the bowl of tomatoes towards her. “It’s fun.”

Santana eyed the table, full of salad ingredients that they hadn’t been turning into salad for at least the past ten minutes.

“I don’t know.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Eventually, she did pick up a cherry tomato and place it on top of her nose. After a few seconds of wiggling, the tomato fell off, although at least it dropped onto the table where Santana could pick it up and eat it.

“I wouldn’t make a very good seal,” she said. “How long have you practiced to make it to five seconds?”

“I’ve eaten a lot of tomatoes.”

Santana chuckled and shook her head.

“You know, we should just order a pizza.”

Brittany thought about it. “That’s a good idea. But you should do it, I need to pick up all the tomatoes and wash them before I can move from this chair. I have my lucky socks on.”

Santana reached across the table to where she’d stashed her phone safely away from the vegetables as Brittany began picking up the tomatoes from around her.

“Twenty minutes,” Santana said as she hung up. “Did you get all of them?”

“I ate one.” Brittany turned to smile at her from the sink. “But only when they were all weak and vulnerable and shivering from the shower. I feel kind of bad.”

“Don’t.” Walking up to Brittany, Santana cuddled against her side. It felt nice. “There’s tomato sauce in pizza, right? It’s going to have a friend in your stomach soon enough.”

Brittany picked up one of the just-washed tomatoes and brought it to Santana’s lips. “The sauce shouldn’t be sad and friendless either.”

As she opened her mouth to suck in the tomato, she accidentally did a little of the same to Brittany’s fingers. “You’re always so thoughtful.”

“I know.” Brittany put her arm around Santana as they moved into the living room. “I’m so thoughtful you can pick the movie.”

Santana did, and as soon as their pizza arrived, they cuddled up on the sofa to watch it.

“You have a little sauce there,” she said as she licked flour off her fingertips. “Right on your cheek.”

Brittany reached up to wipe at the wrong cheek.

“No,” it was the first thing that came to her mind, so she pressed a quick kiss to Brittany’s cheek, getting some of the sauce on her lips in the process. “There.”

“Well you have a little sauce there,” Brittany said and kissed her.

It all went downhill from there; it was a miracle none of the pizza went face down on the carpet, and when Santana next looked at the TV screen, it was showing the menu; the film had ended without either one of them noticing.

Well, for a given value of going downhill. She couldn’t really complain.

“Is this okay?” Brittany pressed a quick kiss against her jawline.

“Yeah.” Santana closed her eyes as Brittany continued kissing along the same line, reaching Santana’s ear and then moving down along her neck. After tracing Santana’s collarbones with her mouth (weird, but also kind of nice; pretty much Brittany in a nutshell), she did the same in reverse on the other side, the final kiss landing on the point of Santana’s jaw. Santana nudged her head just a little, and they were kissing again, Brittany’s hand coming up to brush Santana’s hair off her face.

“It’s okay if sweet lady kisses is all we’ll ever do,” Brittany said as they pulled away, staying so close their noses were almost touching. “I really like them, and I don’t play piano so I don’t have carpal tunnel syndrome anyway.”

Santana looked away; that would have been a wonderful moment to make stuff up and to make it all so much easier for herself in the future.

“It’s not that,” she said. She was an actress, not a master manipulator; when it came down to it, she liked to keep her lies to the minimum. “It’s just- I don’t know. I’m sor-“

"Don’t say that.” Brittany ran her hand up Santana’s arm and smiled at her sweetly. The guilt that she’d mostly managed to shut down raised its head and made something in Santana’s stomach twist. “You shouldn’t be sorry. I’m not even sorry you don’t want to do that now. I’m sorry I brought it up again. Next time you can do that so that you don’t need to be sugar honey again and let me down nicely like a bee.”

Santana blinked – sometimes, quite rarely but sometimes – she did find Brittany’s way of speaking a little baffling, but she smiled at Brittany anyway.

“Thanks.”

“You shouldn’t say that either,” Brittany said. “Except that you can have the last slice of pizza, and that’s a sacrifice you can be thankful for.”


	4. Chapter 4

The Friday of her audition, Santana was so nervous she could barely make herself drink a smoothie on the way to the offices where the audition was held. It didn’t really help that it was a sufficiently huge thing for Will Schuester to have thought it worthy of his presence, and his smiling face was the first thing Santana saw when she walked into the building.

“I have faith in you, Santana,” he said as they were in the lift. “When you apply your talents properly, you can do incredible thi-”

“Don’t talk to me.”

She had enough trouble forcing her nervous ticks stay at bay without being distracted by Schuester’s prepping.

It seemed that Schuester if not agreed then at least got the message, and they walked into the casting agency offices in silence that probably looked companionable to anyone who knew neither of them.

The audition was as most auditions were, fine enough. She did well, Santana knew, even if Schuester was definitely a distracting presence that made her come off more defensive and possibly mean-spirited than she’d intended. Then again, the role was for a character that would probably be called a bitch by all the interviewers, so maybe that was a good thing and worked in her favour.

"We’ll be in touch,” the casting agent, a dainty ginger in a perfect 50s aesthetic get-up said and gave her what looked like a real smile, and Santana walked out feeling a lot better than she’d done walking in.

“I think you have a real chance,” Schuester once they were out of the building. “I know Emma, we went on a couple of dates a few years ago, and I can read her. She really liked your audition, that much is clear.”

Santana shrugged. For someone who managed interpersonal relationships for a living, Schuester was sometimes the absolute worst at reading anything so she couldn’t really take his impression at face value. For all she knew, ‘Emma’ had been so happy that he was leaving her offices that she’d been smiling so widely.

She certainly couldn’t blame her.

“I don’t like to count my chickens before they’re hatched,” Schuester went on, “but that role would be amazing for you. I think second or third episode would be a great place for the break-up, too, that’s the crucial time for ratings so it’s good to have every extra push lined up for that time.”

Santana’s stomach lurched again at the mention of the break-up, and she looked away from Schuester, unable to hide the look on her face. It was bad enough to live with the knowledge she was lying to Brittany; she really didn’t want to think about how it all would end.

—

“So how’s the _Hunting Flats_ hiatus been treating you?” Sarah the talk show host asked, smiling at Santana from her side of the coffee table.

Santana smiled back. She liked the show, sometimes even watched it after a hard day at work, and Sarah had that je-ne-sais-quoi quality of making you feel at ease that not too many talk show hosts had and more should have.

“I’ve been sleeping and working on my pie throwing for next season,” she said and the audience laughed. Santana was pretty sure that in the actual show, there would be footage of all the times she’d thrown pies on the show in the background.

“A little bird has been telling us that you’ve got up to something else, too,” Sarah said. “And by a little bird, I mean Twitter. How does it feel to have your Disneyland date be a trending topic?”

Santana looked behind them, and true enough, she could see one of the selfies they’d taken that day, right after Brittany had stuffed a whole candy floss cone into her mouth and just a few minutes before Santana had had a very embarrassing fan girl moment about seeing Tiana.

She looked really happy, she thought. She’d never thought herself _that_ good an actress.

“It’s still kind of surreal to me,” she said with a smile that hopefully didn’t look as different from the picture behind her as it felt. “I mean, a few nights ago we were watching a movie and I happened to look a little to the left of the screen and counted like seven Grammies. There are moments like that, but then again there are moments like that,” she nodded towards the picture, “where I barely even remember someone else is ever going to know about it, like it’s just the two of us.” She smiled at the camera. “Those are the best moments.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got lookers,” Sarah said, pretending to look down at her cue cards. “I just meant to quickly check what the kids are saying about you two these days, and I was absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of support there was. I think you got a portmanteau going on, too. Does that mean you’re the next Brangelina?”

She laughed. It was a little hollow, but hopefully no one would realise. “It’s really difficult for me to think about that, because it’s our private life and our private relationship that just happens to play out partially in public. But every day I get messages from girls telling me they’re so happy they can see someone like them out there, and that’s really the only publicity I care about.”

She’d practiced that in front of the mirror at home. It came out really well, but that didn’t mean the taste the words left in her mouth wasn’t ash.

They talked for a while longer, about rolemodels and LGBT icons and Sarah’s cat playing piano, and then about Santana’s future projects, which provided a great bridge for Sarah to introduce Tina and her band, the day’s musical guests. All in all, it was a very nice interview, and Santana would have multiple glowingly approving text messages from William Schuester on her phone when she was done. She really couldn’t say why it left her in such a morose mood.

She couldn’t dwell on that for long, though, because it wouldn’t do to look unhappy on a dinner date with her fake girlfriend. She really should have thought it through before she agreed to that right after a talk show appearance.

“Do you want to go home to do something else?” Brittany asked after five minutes of Santana trying to look at the menu. “You look like you have private feelings again.”

Santana bit her lip. She couldn’t well tell Brittany that her foul mood had come from lying through her teeth on national TV about their relationship.

“No,” she said, flashing Brittany a smile. “It’s okay. I guess I’m just a little stressed about not having heard back from that audition I had last Friday.”

“Casting directors were born as octopuses so they could grab at all the talent they see,” Brittany said, sliding her hand across the table to squeeze at Santana’s. “It’s really difficult to use touch screens with suction cups, though, so that’s why they always call late.”

Santana smiled. That did make her feel a lot better. “Thanks.”

“No problem. You should order fried calamari.”

She shook her head, but that didn’t mean she stopped smiling. Quite the contrary. “How are they supposed to call if I eat their tentacles?”

“If you can’t beat them, become like them,” Brittany said. “And you are what you eat.”

“The things I do for you.”

“You’ll see.” Brittany’s foot nudged hers under the table. “You’ll see.”

—

Santana wasn’t really proud of it, but in a very nondescript and untitled draft in her email’s draft folder, there were links to websites that she kept just in case she sometimes needed them for quick access.

She’d have to remember to delete her browser history after this, she thought as she scrolled down the page to the next picture of her and Brittany leaving the restaurant the previous evening.

In this one, she had her arm around Brittany, keeping Brittany plastered against her side in that way you only did when you were just on the good side of tipsy and your friend had had just two drinks. She was laughing, and Brittany’s head was ducked down, hiding what Santana knew to have been a smile on her face.

She looked very happy, her lips so close to Brittany’s head it looked a lot like she was going to kiss Brittany’s ear.

Santana remembered that moment. After Brittany had calmed her nerves about things she hadn’t realised she’d been worrying about before Brittany asked, they’d talked some more about marine wildlife, and by the time they were leaving the restaurant, it had all escalated to planning the perfect mermaid birthday party.

It could have just been a fake moment for the paparazzi, but Santana hadn’t even realised that they were there.

And they definitely hadn’t been at Brittany’s house where Santana had come in for just the time required for a sweet, long kiss against Brittany’s front door to end the night.

It was all just… something, she told herself. Maybe she was more of a method actress than she’d previously thought. She should make a note of exploring that a little, see if it improved her performance on screen or something.

Her phone rang. For a second Santana was sure it was Brittany, calling to tell her about something weird and oddly cute she wanted to do together, but not such luck. William Schuester.

"Hey,” Santana said. “What do I owe the honour to?”

“Emma called.” Schuester sounded suspiciously pleased with himself. That was always a worrying sign, if not for Santana’s professional life then at least for something. “They want you in for another audition. She didn’t say, but I know her well and her process never changes, so I’m pretty sure there are only very few actors at this stage.”

Santana’s heart missed a beat and then compensated with what felt like ten extra ones. “You think I have a chance at the part?”

“Most definitely. I’m sure your chances were greatly enhanced by-”

Santana tuned him out, casting shadow figures at the wall with her hand until he’d got all of his boasting out of his system. The duck even looked a little like him when it moved its beak to quack about its industry connections or something.

“When is it?” she asked when he finally shut up.

“Next week. Emma will call me with the details, or maybe I can pry them out of her during our dinner on Friday,” poor Emma, “but I’ll tell you as soon as I know. They’ll want to screen test you with the other actors, so come with your best smile.”

“When ever don’t I do that?”

Schuester laughed uncomfortably, like he could all too easily think of answers to that question, but he didn’t say any of them out loud.

Once Santana finally got to hang up on him, she sent a quick text to Brittany ( _octopus finally made cell phone work!!! screen testing next week!_ ) and gave in to a victory dance around her living room that only stopped when her phone beeped to signal a text message, probably Brittany’s reply.

She stopped dead in her tracks in front of the sofa, realising what she’d done.

This might have been her first time fake-dating anyone, but she was quite sure it wasn’t supposed to entail her fake girlfriend being the first person she told very good news to.

She picked up her phone without even opening Brittany’s message and selected her mother’s number.

“Santana, dear, I’m so happy you called? How are you? Is everything-”

“Yeah, mum,” Santana said, interrupting her before she could convince her she’d only called because she’d heard of a comet heading towards the earth. She called her more often than that, right? “Everything’s good. Great, actually. I just got a second audition for a part I really want, just thought I’d share the good news now that I have them. How’re you and dad?”

“That’s marvellous,” her mother said, and Santana could just imagine her smile, warm and happy as she cut the roses she insisted on growing in their tiny balcony. “Your father and I are fine, he’s at work right now but he’ll be back by six today if you want to talk to him, too.”

“Maybe I should. I don’t have anything to do today except to prepare for that audition and do a few chores.”

“So,” her mother’s voice turned more gossipy. “Tell me all about it. What’s the part like?”

Santana told her what she knew, which wasn’t that much but then again her mother loved catching glimpses of the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle through Santana’s eyes. It was plenty for her.

“And about other stuff?” her mother asked when she was done. “The neighbours are asking about it, they all but the same magazines as I do, they just pretend they don’t, and I haven’t been able to tell them yes or no or even my daughter doesn’t want to comment because you haven’t told me.”

Santana frowned. “What?”

“Oh, don’t be so secretive, dear, if it’s all over the magazines and you’re talking about it on talk shows for all of America to see, it’s definitely serious enough to tell your mother about.”

Oh. How had she never realised that it would get to her mother? Santana chastised herself. She should have thought of this, come up with a plan or something.

“I just-” she said. “It’s been really sudden, and you don’t really get a lot of time to make up your mind about stuff like that unless you’re really good at secrecy-”

“Usually not your forte,” her mother butted in.

“So I guess I just wanted to… take it slow, in some ways at least, in the ways that we can even take it slow in our profession.”

Her mother huffed like she always did when she was thinking.

“I forgive you,” she said eventually, the joyous tone betraying her complete lack of any annoyance. Santana couldn’t help wondering if she, too, remembered some things where Santana had really excelled at the secrecy part. “But only if you tell me a little more about her. I watched the music videos and a few interviews, but it’s so very difficult to find out what sort of a person someone is when they’re walking around carrying a snake while wearing a bikini and singing about just wanting to be a rebound or the second best if that’s what it takes. Those lyrics are not very reassuring for a mother to hear, Santana.”

“That’s a really old song, mum, I hadn’t even had a single role when it was-”

“I know, darling, I’m just trying to make a point. How is she?”

Santana closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted until three.

“She’s great, mum. She has a different way of saying things, but she’s sweet and funny and-”

She stopped, not knowing how to continue. She didn’t even say what kind of things she’d have ended up saying before even thinking of them if she had.

“You don’t need to say anything more,” her mother said. “That’s quite enough for a mother to know. I hope we’ll get to meet her someday.”

“You should come visit me here.” She said it before she’d realised it, but she didn’t regret it. “I don’t know if she’ll be free, she’s working on a new album so she could be busy, but…” All that was true, but Brittany would definitely make time for meeting Santana’s parents if she asked. Which she would not, but her mother didn’t need to know that. “I haven’t seen you in so long, and it’s only a one-hour drive, you should come.”

“Oh, that would be lovely. I’ll mention it to your father, call tonight and we’ll talk.”

“Okay.” Santana took a deep breath. “Love you, mum.”

“Oh, we love you, too. Call us, and we’ll settle a date.”

She smiled, somehow feeling better already. “I will.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Yuck,” Brittany said as they settled in a comfortable position on the sofa to cuddle. “I think I still have foam in my mouth.”

“It’s not an ingredient of food.” Santana shook her head. “They should stop trying to make it happen.”

“It looks a lot better clinging to your old clothes in a music video.”

Santana turned to her, eyebrow raised. “You watched that? I didn’t think it’d be very much like your taste in music?”

“It’s not,” Brittany said. “They were really good but I felt really sorry for the saws that had to die for the music. But you’re my taste in everything so I watched it anyway.”

“Awww.” Santana rested her head more comfortably against Brittany’s shoulder. “That’s so sweet.”

“Sugar, spice and everything nice.” Brittany bit her lip. “That sounds good. I should ask someone to write me a song with that.”

“You could just sing the original.”

“Nah.” Brittany pressed a quick kiss against Santana’s forehead. “Katy Perry already did the look with the candy floss, and I don’t want to look like I’m copying her because some of her outfits are really bad and I don’t want to make any of my fans sad and mad at the same time.”

Reaching for Brittany’s hand and pulling it into her lap, Santana snuggled closer.

“That’s one way to put it.”

They were quiet for a moment; the only things Santana could hear were the occasional car driving past the house and Brittany’s heart, beating just a few inches away from where Santana’s ear was pressed against Brittany’s shoulder.

“I should tell you something,” Brittany said into the silence.

Santana looked up; the angle was awkward, but she could still flash a small, quick smile at Brittany. “Please do.”

Brittany looked away, her fingers squeezing tighter around Santana’s where their joined hands were in Santana’s lap.

“I almost didn’t come to our first date.”

Santana opened her mouth, but nothing came out. That was all well and good, though, since after a moment, Brittany continued.

“Sue always set me up with the worst people, and I just thought that maybe her taste in people was that bad so it wouldn’t be any different even if it was different.” She focused her gaze on Santana, the tiniest smile on her lips. “But then it was, and I was so happy I did. But I’m sorry for the Santana who sat alone and awkward waiting for me in some other universe where I was less lucky.”

Santana looked away. The guilt about lying to Brittany had never truly gone away, always hiding somewhere to rear its head at the worst moments, and this was one of those moments because it could have, in some other circumstances, been such a nice moment.

For the first time, she found herself wishing William Schuester had been exactly like Sue Sylvester in all her Machiavellian glory.

“Do you want to meet my parents?” she asked as the first thing that came to her mind that was not the truth. “They’re coming here next Saturday, and I’m sure they’d love the chance to meet you.”

Luckily, she was talking to Brittany and Brittany probably was aware of neither the name nor the concept of non-sequitur and so didn’t seem to think it odd that that was what Santana answered with.

She almost expected Brittany to jump up and grin, but instead, Brittany went very still as a radiant smile slowly began unfurling on her face.

“I would love to meet your parents,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s ever met their parents with me after high school, and it’s not really the same if your parents play bridge together and greet you at the grocery store.”

“That’s settled then?” Santana asked, hoping Brittany attributed the shakiness of her voice to something besides the uncertainty that it was. “You’re free next Saturday?”

“I have a thing in the evening,” Brittany said. “But it’s an evening thing so I have most of the day free.”

“That’s good.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll tell them that. They’ll be really happy to finally meet you.”

Brittany looked at her for a long time, just smiling, and then slowly moved forwards to kiss Santana, who kissed back, trying to focus only on that and forget everything that was complicated around it.

It felt very good when she finally managed to do that.

—

“Okay,” the agency owner said, looking down at the calendar in front of him. “You’ve got that Beiste Productions audition next Monday. That’s a big deal, you’ve been preparing for it, right?”

Santana wanted to scoff and stare, but she actually liked him a lot more than she liked Schuester, who was being his usual tool self one chair over, not that that was a great accomplishment or a difficult thing to manage. It would probably very innocently annoy Schuester, though, so she flashed her brightest smile at the owner.

“Yes,” she said. “I am taking it very seriously. It could mean great things, for all of us.”

“Good, good.”

The owner literally twiddled his thumbs. Santana was quite sure the only reason he’d even called the meeting was to make sure that if Santana would actually get the role, she’d be reminded of who actually owned the place and wouldn’t attribute too much credit to Schuester.

As if.

“And you did a video, for a band, right?”

“That was a couple of weeks ago,” Santana said. It was an understatement, but she was good enough not to tell him that it had been such a long time ago he really shouldn’t be asking about it anymore as if it was something current.

“And that went well, right? It’s not really my style of music, and we don’t do artists, so I’m a little,” he chuckled as if he’d said something funny, “out of sorts with the whole thing.”

“It went very well.” Santana thought about punching him in the face and smiled. “They are not Beyoncé or anything, but they’re gaining ground and have quite a lot of hits on YouTube if you wanted to see for yourself, not to mention radioplay.”

It wouldn’t directly affect her, of course, and most people probably wouldn’t even pay very much attention to an actress in a music video, but all publicity was good publicity, right?

“Great, great.” The owner glanced at his watch; it was probably golf time. “Was that all? I should be off now, but I’m sure Will here will contact me if there’s anything I can-”

“Absolutely, absolutely,” Schuester said as if he’d got so desperate waiting to speak that he couldn’t handle himself any longer but had to interrupt. “Thanks so much for coming here to see us, it really speaks volumes to your-”

“Think nothing of it,” the owner said, slapping Schuester on his shoulder like he really needed to return the favour of having been interrupted. “Anything for my precious actors, right?”

Santana had never thought she had much in common with Schuester, but they both definitely did the same awkward fake laugh at that.

“He doesn’t know anything about your sneaky dealings with Sue Sylvester, does he?” Santana said once the owner was out of the room.

That was all well and good, really. Santana had an excellent gaydar, but her homophobe finder skills were fairly well-honed as well.

“No,” Schuester said. “He’s the boss, and bosses are not to be bothered with details, right?”

“You’re not going to become him by imitating him.”

Schuester looked like he wanted to say something, but for once he managed to keep his thoughts to himself.

“So how’s it going with Brittany? I have been seeing good things, and things are certainly looking good for you.”

“It’s going well,” Santana said. “My parents are coming in this Saturday, we’ve been talking about getting together so she could meet them.”

“Are you sure that’s quite-”

Schuester was interrupted once again, though, by the owner sticking his head in and asking if either one of them had seen if he’d taken his golf clubs out of his car or not.

—

Her parents arrived in the late morning, picked Santana and her contributions to the grill party they were going to have (Santana had long ago learnt that the fact that her father loved grilling was nothing special - she didn’t know a father who didn’t love it - but what made her father special was that he was the absolute best at it) and drove to Brittany’s house. After her mother had managed to regain control of her jaw (“I knew that pop stars did well, and your house is really lovely, too, honey, but- This is quite something else, good god!”), they went in and were greeted by Brittany, being her usual bubbly self and introducing them to her grill equipment (left over from the earlier owner) that, Santana was sure, would have been her father’s fifties crisis if it hadn’t already been a motorcycle.

“Don’t you ever break up with her,” her father said, his voice full of wonder, as he turned to Santana. “This is where I want my last meal to be cooked.”

“You can call me anytime to use it,” Brittany offered and the two of them began inspecting the grill more closely.

“It does look quite impressive,” Santana’s mother said, tilting her head and appraising the thing. “I’m sure it’ll produce good food.”

“Good?” Santana’s father turned back to her, his eyes wide like she’d sworn really loudly in front of someone else’s children. “Good? It’s going to be divine, you’re going to love it, it’s going to be the best meal you’ve ever had, I-”

“Isn’t confessing your love this soon a little forwards, Dad?” Santana asked, sitting down by the picnic table.

“Not when it is true and genuine,” her father proclaimed as he turned it on and began squealing in delight at something that had to do with the smoke or something (Santana assumed) that Brittany pointed out to him.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Brittany gave Santana a quick smile, “if I were you. The stones are cold and I don’t think they know how to love back.”

Santana’s father muttered something about suffering for love that none of them paid much attention to.

“Well,” Santana’s mother said, sitting down next to Santana, “if the food’s as good as you claim it’s going to be, you can have it as a mistress, I won’t mind.”

“I also have a really nice guest bathtub if you want to have your own affair.” Brittany began taking things out of the picnic basket Santana’s parents had prepared. “It would only be fair.”

“Ooh,” Santana’s mother said and turned to Santana. “I agree with your father, this one’s a keeper.”

The laugh she let out should have felt awkward, but it didn’t, and Santana didn’t want to think too much about why was that.

Fifteen minutes later, at least three different delicious smells were coming out of the grill and Brittany and Santana’s mother had happily bonded over how important using proper shoes was when you were going to stand for a long time.

“I feel like you’re purposefully targeting me.” Santana shook her head. “High heels look great, I rest my case.”

“The X-rays of your feet probably don’t, darling,” her mother said.

“I’m sure your feet look fine,” Brittany smiled at her softly, “but I will get carpal tunnel from giving your feet massages after long events where they’ve been skimpy with the chairs so I think we win anyway.”

“Don’t gang up on me.” Santana made a show of pouting, which probably fooled neither one of them. “Okay, change of topic. Brittany, which _Pride and Prejudice_ adaptation is clearly the superior one?”

Brittany blinked and turned to Santana’s mother. “It was nice being your ally, but I always fall asleep halfway through the BBC one and I’ve watched the extras of the film at least a billion times. I hope you won’t hate me.”

Santana’s mother shrugged and smiled. “We all have our faults.”

Santana counted until ten in her head. Her mother was truly lovely, but she was also very predictable.

“I’m sorry,” her mother said, like clockwork. “I cannot leave it at that. After today, we’re setting a date to watch it all together, and then you millennials with no appreciation for the classics will learn what a proper adaptation looks like.”

Brittany sparked up. “I’ll bring the popcorn.”

Santana couldn’t help the smile. She’d been more or less forced to watch the full six hours of the BBC version at least once a year ever since she was ten; maybe it would be nicer cuddling with Brittany, who had a habit of never being able to watch a kiss on screen without kissing her. Maybe the final image would be less annoying if she wouldn’t have to look at it.

“That’s settled then,” her mother said just as her father looked up from the grill and asked Brittany to come give him a helping hand with the corn.

Santana and her mother watched the two of them work on it for a moment until Santana’s mother looked away and smiled softly at her.

“She seems like a really nice girl. I feel extremely vindicated for that time when I accidentally burnt Mrs Wilson’s bacon after she said she was just another gold-digging slut.”

Santana bit her lip. “Yeah, she’s great.”

Her mother laughed and nudged at her side. “I’ve never seen you like this, you know.”

“Like what?”

“So happy with someone. When I started hearing rumours before I heard from you, I said to myself that either it’s just another fling that we’d never even hear about if it wasn’t for your career, or then it’s really serious.”

Snorting, Santana raised her eyebrow. “That doesn’t make any sense, mum.”

“I’m your mother, and it does to me.” She reached out to touch at Santana’s arm. “You always lock up everything that’s truly important to you under seven layers of stone in a safe. That’s the way you’ve always been.”

Santana looked away. “You’ve been watching too much fantasy adaptations.”

“True, but I’m right about this.”

Santana looked at where Brittany was holding a tray for Santana’s father to pile the food onto. Her ability to lie to herself was not what it used to be.

“Yeah,” she said and bit her lip. “You are. I’m happier with her than I ever expected to be. It’s just-” She couldn’t tell her mother, not ever and definitely not like this. “It’s complicated in Hollywood.”

“It doesn’t seem very complicated to me right now,” her mother said. “She loves you, too.”

Santana swallowed and smiled at Brittany when their eyes met.

“I guess you’re right,” she said reluctantly.

It would be complicated, she knew. But it would also be worth it, that much she could be sure about.

She was quiet as they sat down to eat, glad to let her parents question Brittany about her childhood and career and working with Ricky Martin.

She’d have to tell Brittany. If they were going to make a go at it for real, there was no way that could happen without Brittany knowing how they’d started. They’d get past that, she thought, obviously not without problems but they would. Brittany was not a pushover by any means, but she did value honesty and was at the root of it forgiving by nature.

And she’d have to tell Schuester to call off whatever break-up idea he’d been cooking. That would be significantly easier and far more satisfying.

They had pancakes for dessert, and while Santana’s mother got up and declared she was going to show them all how to make Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes, Santana slipped away to make the phone call.

No time like the present. She’d been living a lie for long enough.

She had to listen to the phone ring for three, four - that bastard - five times before Schuester picked up.

“So what’s the damage?” he asked in lieu of greeting. “A sex tape would be great, we could really work it to our advant-”

“There’s no damage.” Santana didn’t even bother hiding the venom in her voice. “Everything is going really well.”

She glanced back at the picnic table where Brittany was waving her hands around in what usually was her rainbow gesture, Santana’s father nodding along very seriously and her mother looking at the two of them with a small smile on her lips.

“What did you call me for, then? You never call me unless it’s something to be fixed.”

“Correction: I never call you.” Santana took a deep breath. Now. “I’m not going to break up with Brittany.”

She would have given a lot to see Schuester’s face right as she said it, but when he spoke, his voice was annoyingly calm.

“Not yet, of course. Like I said, the second episode would perhaps be the best provided you get the role.”

“No.” Her mouth felt dry, but she made damn sure she sounded as collected as he did. “I am not breaking up with her when you say we should. I love her.”

There was a pause, and Santana was just allowing herself to hope, just a little, maybe he wouldn’t fight it, when-

“Of course you think you love her. That’s great, you need to really put your feelings into it to make it believable.”

Another deep breath while Santana willed herself not to sound as small as she felt. “No, I don’t mean that. I love her, I want to be with her, and I am calling off this ridiculous PR plan you’ve got going on.”

“Santana,” Schuester said, and there it was, his usual condescension. “You’re an actress. Are you a PoliSci major rooming with a feisty redhead?”

Santana pursed her lips. “No.”

“Or an unhinged bridesmaid?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Those are roles that you’ve played, and this is another one. It’s not reality, you’ve got to remember that or you will get hurt when it’s all over.”

She didn’t like his tone, but at least it was just on the side of infuriating that gave her strength to fight back. “Those were works of fiction, this is real life. Maybe it wasn’t exactly real in the beginning, but it can become real.”

“Can it?” To her delight, Schuester sounded really unsettled by her words. “You think you can just take over my hard work and make all your Disney princess dreams come true, Santana? I’d like to see you try, I really would. Just remember that dreams don’t carry you very far and when you crash and burn, I’m not going to be there to put down the flames.”

“What would you do anyway,” Santana said, “throw gasoline at them? I don’t need you if that’s the way you’re acting.”

There was a pause, and Santana was just beginning to suspect that Schuester had left his phone on his desk while he stormed out of the room when he spoke again.

“You’ll thank me later for everything I’ve done for you,” he said quietly. “I tell you, you’re going to thank me later.”

“Yeah,” Santana allowed all of the contempt she was feeling to seep into the words, “we’ll see about that.”

The rest of the afternoon was, for her, tainted by the gloom of Schuester’s words and her own creeping apprehension, but she doubted her parents and Brittany paid much attention to it since they seemed to find topics of conversation very easily all on their own without her participating as much as she usually would have.

“It was very nice to meet you, Brittany,” her mother said as they were finally leaving, after many hugs and promises to set a date for a new meeting and whatever else.

“It was really nice to meet you, too,” Brittany said. “And you.”

Santana’s father smiled, his hands clutching the basket in which the leftovers were.

Going by his smile, Santana was sure that his father’s basketball team buddies would never hear the end of his stories about that one wonderful grill he’d had the chance to try out.

“They were really great,” Brittany said to Santana as they were standing on her front porch and waving at the car that was slowly reversing out of the driveway.

“Yeah.” Santana draped her arm around Brittany’s shoulder. The gesture felt a lot better when she wasn’t fighting the feelings it brought to the surface. “They really were. And they think you were too. I bet that when you go to do your interview thing, my phone will be just bombarded with texts from mum and they’ll all be full of exclamation points.”

“I like to make people type exclamation points,” Brittany said, resting her head against Santana’s as the car finally disappeared from view.

Santana sighed. If they wanted to make the interview in time, they really should get going soon, and anyway it didn’t seem like a good idea to give Brittany upsetting news right before a public appearance. She’d do it in the evening. As far as she knew, Brittany didn’t have anything booked for Sunday.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m always really disappointed when the greenroom is not actually green,” Brittany said, sitting down on the sofa next to Santana and taking her hand. “I just feel really bad for all the leprechauns that came to check it out and were disappointed.”

“Maybe they thought that the other colours were refreshing, though.” Santana squeezed at Brittany’s hand. “I mean, if I had lived my whole life only seeing one colour, I’d love to see the whole rainbow, you know?”

Brittany seemed to consider that.

“True,” she said eventually. “Maybe that’s why they guard their pots of gold so jealously. They remind them of the rainbows their ancestors once saw.”

“Sounds like a solid theory.”

Brittany smiled and leaned forwards before stopping as if she’d realised something.

“I can’t kiss with interview make-up,” she said. “Not until I have the break-down that we Britneys all have to go through, because until then I have to be impeccable in every interview so that it’s even more shocking.”

Santana laughed, bringing Brittany’s hand to her lips and kissing the back of it softly. “How about that interview after you did the paintball fight with the kids with cancer?”

“It was the perfect make-up for the moment.” Brittany smiled. “And they fixed my make-up after the war and before the interview anyway. I thought it was weird but people often are.”

“Yeah,” Santana said, running her thumb across Brittany’s palm. “They often are.”

“Ms Pierce,” some assistant said, knocking on the doorframe. “Are you ready?”

“I was born ready.”

With one last wave at Santana, she went off to do her thing, and Santana settled more comfortably on the sofa to watch from the monitor next to it.

—

“I don’t think anyone really got the wolf metaphor,” Brittany said when they were in a taxi on their way back to Brittany’s. “Everyone always thinks of the alphabet when I just actually meant sweet lady kisses.”

Santana gave her a quick kiss. “All the geniuses were misunderstood by their contemporaries.”

“That’s true.”

They were both still mostly full from their lunch with Santana’s parents, so they made themselves grilled cheese sandwiches and settled in front of the TV to watch the rerun of some comedy show Santana didn’t recognise.

This was her moment. Santana breathed in as deep as she could and then slowly let it all out.

“There’s something I should talk to you about.”

“Okay,” Brittany said. “If it’s about Lord Tubbington sleeping in your pyjamas, I already know and I’ve talked to him about it. It will happen again but I’ll wash them before you use them.”

Santana frowned, her confession momentarily forgotten. “How does he even sleep in my pyjamas, he’s barely a foot tall if he stands up on his front paws and stretches?”

“He’s cunning.” Brittany turned towards her. “But I think it means he likes you. I’ll still wash the pyjamas, though. And then you could get ones with dogs on them. He hates dog pictures.”

Santana didn’t quite know if she should shake her head incredulously or just smile because Brittany was really cute when she talked about her cat, so she did the only thing that came to her mind, leaned forwards and pressed a kiss against Brittany’s lips.

She meant it to be just a quick peck, maybe followed by an admission of how cute she thought Brittany was when she talked about small animals, which would lead up to the larger confession.

Brittany, however, seemed to have other ideas; her hand came up to rest on Santana’s shoulder, the tips of her fingers just reaching the back of Santana’s neck, keeping her close to Brittany as Brittany pulled away just far enough for Santana to see her smile and then moved back in.

The second kiss was deeper than the first, the sort that Santana could easily forget everything into, and that’s what she did this time as well. The rest of her sandwich probably dropped on the floor, very quickly forgotten, as she moved her hand to Brittany’s waist.

Before she even realised it, she was lying on the sofa, Brittany on top of her pressing kisses down her neck and along her collarbones to the other side and up again (she’d called it “her favourite kind of jewellery” perhaps the third time she’d done it; Santana smiled at the memory).

“I love it when you do that,” Santana said before turning her head for easier angle to kiss Brittany. “It’s-”

She couldn’t really find words for it, but given her eagerness for the kiss, Brittany probably didn’t mind.

The afghan they’d been cuddling under was still under Santana, uncomfortably hot with Brittany’s body heat on top of it all, so Santana tugged it out from under herself and threw it on the floor.

“Better,” she said and pulled Brittany close once again.

This time, though, it was only a few seconds until Brittany pulled away.

“Your hand is on my skirt, Santana.”

Like an idiot, she looked past Brittany’s shoulder where she could see, from a weird angle but still, her own hand that had until Brittany spoke been massaging at the exposed skin right where Brittany’s skirt began and-

Right. That would have been Brittany’s underwear.

“Sorry,” she said, moving her hand up a few inches until it only touched Brittany’s top. “Won’t happen again.”

“I didn’t mind.” Brittany tilted her head a little, weird as it was in their current position, and looked at her seriously. “I just thought you would have because you said you didn’t want to do that and I thought maybe your hand forgot but your brain didn’t.”

“I-” Santana didn’t know what to say again, so she reached up to press a very quick kiss on Brittany’s lips before her muscles forced her to lie back down on the sofa. “I don’t think my brain really cares about that right now.”

“I liked your hand where it was,” Brittany volunteered. “It can stay if your brain gives it the okay.”

Santana laughed and by some miracle of telepathy, Brittany seemed to understand what that meant and settled yet again comfortably against Santana so that they could continue making out.

For a moment, Santana’s mind stayed hyper-focused on her hand, moving it slowly down until it reached the hem of Brittany’s top, then yet again a little, very slowly, until it was where it had been when Brittany had spoken. That was as far as she got before giving in to her instincts, unable to focus on anything but kissing Brittany.

“I don’t mean it the way I say it,” Brittany said when Santana was working a spot along her neck that, Brittany claimed, made her feel “like a cat, or a helicopter”, “but if you wanted, my bed is larger than this sofa and I keep fearing I’m going to throw you on the floor if I move too much.”

“I’m under you, Brit-Brit,” Santana said, pulling away from Brittany’s neck. “If anyone’s flying on the floor, it would be you. Which makes it an excellent idea.”

As they raced up the stairs towards Brittany’s bedroom, Santana felt a lot like she was in _Sound of Music_ , which was a supremely inappropriate thought considering that the moment the bedroom door closed after them, Brittany had her against it, kissing her intensely for a few seconds before pulling away and guiding Santana towards the bed.

Brittany didn’t have a clock in her bedroom (she claimed she’d been scared by “weird British space people”; Santana understood), so Santana didn’t know how long they’d been making out on the bed. It felt like hours, but then again Brittany’s bed felt like clouds and Brittany’s spit kind of was the nicest Santana had ever tasted, so her perception wasn’t really at its most reliable.

And neither was her impulse control, because it only took Brittany’s nose gently nudging at the collar of Santana’s shirt for her to ask, “When you said you didn’t mean it, did you mean you didn’t want to or-”

“I’ve kind of wanted since I saw you drinking alone at a bar waiting for me,” Brittany said, smiling as she looked up at Santana.

That settled it, the final piece in her mind lodging into place. Santana reached up to start undoing her buttons.

“So if I wanted, would you-”

“I’d want too,” Brittany said, her hand covering Santana’s, making the unbuttoning a lot more difficult but also lot more intriguing.

Santana’s breath was coming only in quick, shallow bursts, and she forced herself to breathe in deeply, not a small feat when Brittany’s hand brushed against her naked stomach.

“You look like a really sexy teacher when you wear pencil skirts,” Brittany said as she helped Santana get rid of the shirt, which ended up unceremoniously on the floor. “It kind of makes me sad that I don’t have a pre-schooler so that I could charm you with my crayoning skills at a parent teacher meeting.”

“I’m pretty sure it’d be unethical of a teacher to date a parent,” Santana said, the words ringing a bell at the back of her head that quickly shut down when Brittany pressed a quick kiss just a few inches above her bellybutton.

“Maybe,” Brittany said, “and anyway, it’d be great if I could take it off so-”

The sound that escaped Santana’s mouth was probably answer enough, but just to make sure, she added, “Please.”

She raised her body up so that it was easier for Brittany to open the zipper and pull the skirt down and off.

“You could have just pushed it up,” Santana said, her voice coming out surprisingly steady considering that Brittany’s hands were slowly moving up and down her thighs.

“But then it might get in the way of looking at how pretty you are,” Brittany pointed out, pressing a kiss against Santana’s thigh that made it quite impossible for Santana to argue further about it.

Her underwear was the next to go, leaving her in just her bra on top of the covers with Brittany still fully, if at that point very untidily, clothed. She should have felt exposed, and in some other circumstances she probably would have, but it was hard to when Brittany was either smiling at her or nuzzling her the area where her thighs met her hips the whole time.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this,” Brittany said, pushing Santana’s legs apart so that she could settle comfortably between them. “I might suck the way no one wants to.”

“No, you couldn’t,” Santana said, forcing herself to prop herself up on her elbows to better look at Brittany. “You’re Brittany, that’s already making it perfect.”

“Nothing less for you.” Brittany’s smile was the last thing Santana saw before Brittany ducked her head and pushed out her tongue.

The first licks were careful, just teasing, barely there touches that made Santana throw her head back and let out a pleased sigh nevertheless. Brittany’s hands moved up her thighs, sending shivers up Santana’s spine, to brush against where Brittany’s tongue had been. After a second, Santana could feel Brittany’s tongue yet again on her, this time very close to her clit, making her squirm trying to make the two meet. Brittany didn’t pull away, licking quickly exactly where Santana wanted her, but after that her mouth moved downwards where Santana could just feel wetness pooling up. Her fingers were quick to follow, stroking at and exploring Santana’s vulva along with the tongue, and Santana couldn’t keep in her moan any longer, grasping at the sheets so that she wouldn’t grab at Brittany’s head.

Brittany’s finger pushed against her, very carefully and gently, and Santana pushed back, letting out something that probably might have been words in some other situation as Brittany’s finger sank in deeper, another one quickly joining it. That seemed to be Brittany’s cue to drag her tongue up to Santana’s clit again, eliciting another moan that was prolonged by the purposeful way Brittany began licking at her clit while her fingers pushed slowly as deep as they could go and then withdrew until they were maybe only an inch in before pushing in again, finding a slow, excruciatingly good rhythm that accentuated the pleasure Brittany’s tongue was giving her.

Santana came with another garbled sound that might have been a little bit like a warning about what was going to happen, her muscles contracting around Brittany’s fingers. Brittany kept up the same rhythm all the way through her orgasm, only the licks of her tongue becoming more careful, more to the side, as if very conscious of the oversensitivity that was slowly setting in.

“Just so you know,” Santana said when she could speak in full sentences again, pulling feebly at Brittany’s shoulder until Brittany took the hint and moved up to better cuddle against, “if that’s you with your skills a little rusty, I can’t wait to see what a little refreshing will bring out.”

“I’d be happy to check,” Brittany said, kissing her deeply, gently, slowly, her arms snaking around Santana’s waist and giving her a very potent reminder that Brittany was still dressed and, more to the point, completely untouched.

“Is this okay?” Santana asked as she began pulling up Brittany’s dress. “I could undress you just like you did, but that takes time and I’d love to return the favour.”

“I can be patient some other day.” Brittany yanked her dress up and began wiggling out of her underwear.

Santana let her fingers dance for a moment on Brittany’s lower stomach, enjoying and filing away the way it seemed to make Brittany’s breathing lose all rhythm, before pushing downwards, past Brittany’s pubic hair and where Brittany was already wet.

“I really liked the way you taste,” Brittany said as if that needed an explanation, and Santana kissed her, figuring it was the best response to something like that.

She teased her fingers at Brittany’s opening, Brittany pushing against her hand and moaning into the kiss, until one of Brittany’s hands reached down to grab at hers and bring it up to her clit. Santana took the hint and began rubbing at it, pulling away from the kiss and letting her mouth travel down to Brittany’s neck to kiss, lick and gently bite at all the spots she knew Brittany particularly liked.

She couldn’t tell exactly when Brittany came, only realising it had happened when her finger brushed against Brittany’s vulva that was even wetter than it had been. Brittany gave her a lazy smile and guided her mouth back up to kiss at Brittany’s lips.

“Sometimes impatience really pays off.”

Santana didn’t know what to say to that, just laughing, happier than she remembered being in a long time as she helped Brittany out of her dress and the rest of her clothing.

She was, to her occasional embarrassment, definitely the type to snooze off after sex, so she curled up against Brittany once they got under the covers and muttered, with her last strength, “I really need to talk to you about this thing.”

“We’ll both wake up in the morning,” Brittany said, and that was the last thing Santana remembered before sleep claimed her.

—

She woke up slowly, memories of last night rushing back to her before she was even properly awake, and stretched on the bed, eyes still closed.

That was when she realised that her feet probably should have brushed against Brittany’s instead of thin air, the bed already cold like no one had slept on the other side for a while. Santana opened her eyes.

She was alone in the room, save for Lord Tubbington who was glaring at her from Brittany’s vanity. That was nothing new, of course; Lord Tubbington glared at her pretty much every time he saw her. It just wasn’t the look Santana had been hoping to see the first thing in the morning.

She made herself push the warmth of the covers aside and pick up her underwear and shirt. That should do for a breakfast outfit.

She couldn’t hear sounds of anything as she descended the staircase, which was a little unusual since Brittany liked having the TV on while she ate breakfast. Brittany wasn’t in the kitchen, and not in the hall (which wasn’t really a surprise), and Santana was starting to get worried until she spotted Brittany on the living room sofa as she peered in.

“I was starting to get worried,” she said lightly as she stepped into the room. “You’re not usually up this early.”

She rounded the sofa and came face to face with Brittany, naked save for the afghan she’d wrapped around herself, her phone lying forgotten next to her on the sofa.

Something was wrong, she knew without being able to explain why.

Brittany didn’t turn to look at her when she said, voice small and quiet, “I should have known Sue couldn’t get something right like this if she was actually trying to do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry?


	7. Chapter 7

Santana took a deep breath. There was only one explanation.

“Who told you?”

Brittany glanced her way and then quickly refocused her gaze on the coffee table. “Does it matter?”

No, Santana supposed it didn’t really matter. It had most likely been Sue, trying to get Brittany to end it so that she could get the sympathy vote before Schuester-

Schuester. Of course.

“His name was Will Schuester, wasn’t it?”

Brittany didn’t answer for a while, but when she finally did, it was with yet another quick glance at Santana.

“Was he wrong?”

“Yes- No- I-” She didn’t quite dare sit next to Brittany, so sure Brittany was going to pull away, so she sat on the hand rest. “It was for publicity, at first, but then I genuinely started liking you and it just-”

“I don’t lie to people who I really like,” Brittany said, pulling the afghan tighter around herself.

“I meant to tell you.” Santana reached out her hand and pulled it back. Brittany wouldn’t take it anyway. “I really did. I didn’t want you to hear it from him.”

“He wasn’t mean about it if you’re afraid of that.” Brittany pulled her feet under the afghan, curling up into a small, fuzzy ball inside it. Santana could still see the sandwich-shaped stain on the material. That felt like years ago, now. “He said he was sorry about it and everything.”

He was sorry-

“I bet he’s going to be really sorry when I talk to him today,” Santana said. “He wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“That’s very clear.” Brittany’s voice was a mumble from where her face was half buried in the afghan.

“I wanted to be the one to- It wasn’t supposed to go like this, Brittany, please-”

“I didn’t want it to go like this either,” Brittany said. “But I think you should go before Lord Tubbington forgets his manners and challenges you into a duel. You’re obviously very cunning, I’m afraid he wouldn’t win.”

Santana took a deep breath - now or never again - and slid down from the hand rest to sit next to Brittany, her thighs just inches away from Brittany’s toes.

“I love you,” she said. “Please, believe me. I was going to tell you about all that yesterday, but then-”

Brittany didn’t look up, but Santana was pretty sure she heard a sob.

“You should go.” Brittany’s voice was shaky. “You’re a great actress, but you really shouldn’t try to do improv.”

Santana looked at her, her heart breaking at the sight of Brittany so small, so close and so far.

“Okay,” she said.

She peeked into the living room on her way out. Brittany was still on the same spot, same position. Santana willed her to look up, to see Santana, to see the truth in Santana’s eyes and to forgive her, but she couldn’t say she was surprised when Brittany didn’t.

“I didn’t lie to you,” she said as her last hope, waiting a full minute until opening the front door.

It probably wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d waited a full hour.

She kept her calm, confrontational and ready to snap at any moment as usual, until she’d closed her own front door behind herself. Only then did she allow herself a growl in a desperate attempt to release the frustration and anger and hurt.

It didn’t help, and neither did dialling William Schuester’s phone number and trying to think of the most horrifying way to hurt a man, but a girl had to try, right?

“I was expecting you to call,” Schuester said when he picked up; the bastard, he’d waited until the seventh ring to do so even if he’d probably spent the last three hours looking at his phone expecting it to ring.

“How could you?” She had a lot to say to him, but that was the first thing that came to her mind. “You- You had no right- She’s-”

Forming sentences felt more difficult than it had ever, so Santana gave up on it and began shouting expletives instead. Half of them were probably in Spanish, but Schuester had always bragged about his Spanish A- so the fucker could deal.

He listened, without trying to interrupt, until Santana’s throat was hoarse from shouting.

“I only did it for your own good,” he said when she had to stop to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. “It couldn’t last anyway, and it was better to nip it now than to face dire consequences later.”

“She’s probably crying alone right now,” Santana said once she’d got herself some water. “You broke her heart in the cruellest way possible, how’s that not a dire consequence?”

“I didn’t.” Schuester sounded like he was trying to work his paternalistic frown. It had never been effective. “You broke her heart, Santana. You had weeks and months to tell her that you were just faking it, and you didn’t. Why is that?”

“I-” She couldn’t say anything more. She should have, she should have called Brittany the day after their first date and apologised for the misunderstanding, told her that she’d thought Brittany was in on it until the last second and said that she’d really enjoyed Brittany’s company. She should have let her down gently then, and maybe she could have salvaged a friendship and mutual hatred of their management that could have, with time, blossomed into what they’d had had until this morning, except without any of the lies of omission. “Your guilt-tripping has never been effective.”

“Hasn’t it?” Schuester’s voice was now silky smooth. It didn’t suit him. “Are you not feeling guilty for this whole thing?”

“You know what?” Santana said, something snapping in her. “Yeah, yeah I am. I feel guilty and responsible, and you obviously don’t, not even a bit, and that tells me everything I need to know about you. Go to hell, Will Schuester.”

Pressing red to end the call was not nearly as satisfying as slamming down the receiver would have been on an old landline phone, but throwing her phone onto the sofa helped at least a little.

Fucking Will Schuester, doing everything in his power to mould her into who he thought she should be, to sell out everything she was for fifteen minutes of fame that would never last with his methods anyway. Fucking Sue Sylvester who had no heart and could thrust one of her best clients into a situation like this without the smallest care for her feelings in the matter. Fucking Brittany, who-

No. She couldn’t go there. Maybe she was hurt and angry, but at least she had her anger to keep her going. Brittany only had hurt.

Santana collapsed on the sofa, pulled her feet up and threw her arms around them, finally succumbing to the tears that had been burning her ever since Brittany had told her to leave.

—

She didn’t get absolutely anything done that evening, but the next day, she had an interview for a half-a-page profile on her for a magazine’s special wedding issue.

The glamorous life of a minor character in a rom com, really.

There were going to be pictures, so in the morning, she got up half an hour earlier than usual to try and make herself look like she had not been up half the night crying. The result wouldn’t fool the camera, but it would hopefully fool the make-up artist who’d do the actual make-up for the camera.  
It did, or at least she was nice enough not to mention anything about the faint puffiness around Santana’s eyes or the dark bags under them.

The interview was as they all were, it probably would have been pleasant if it hadn’t felt like she’d already done the same thing a hundred times. The interviewer seemed nice, though, so at least Santana didn’t have to fake smile at some gross douchebag’s innuendos and malicious prying.

“I don’t know if I could do a white dress,” she said and finished the sentence with a laugh. “I’m not the luckiest with dresses, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up walking down the aisle with a sauce stain on my dress so I’d have to make sure it wouldn’t be visible.”

The interviewer laughed like she hadn’t had to hear the same joke in response to that question at least a hundred times, too.

“And how are things on the romantic front for Santana Lopez?” she asked next. “Is that just a theoretical concern or do the wedding bells toll in the distance?”

Santana swallowed and felt her smile become entirely fake. “I don’t know,” she lied. “I’ve never had the patience to plan a wedding for over a year - props to anyone who does - I just always thought it would happen when it felt right. Little notice, simple ceremony, small reception, all that jazz. We’ll see.”

After that, the next question was mercifully something about the film, and Santana could breathe a little easier.

She was just changing back into her own clothes when her phone rang. She raced to it, for a second hoping against all odds it would be Brittany.

William Schuester. Lady Luck had never been one of Santana’s keenest admirers.

She rejected the call.

After changing a few words with the stylist on her way out (she thought red was Santana’s colour; Santana made a mental note of her name since they clearly understood each other very well), she got to her car, closed the door, leaned back against the back rest of the seat and sighed.

She could try going to see if Brittany was home; as far as she knew, Brittany didn’t have anything that day. But then again Brittany probably didn’t want to see her, and she had very good reasons.

But if she’d call, it would be less humiliating not to receive an answer.

She selected Brittany’s number, hands shaking just a little, and pressed the phone against her ear.

It rang once, twice, three times.

“Hello, this is Brittany’s phone. Actually, it’s me, Brittany, but I’m busy being hot and rich right now so if I like you, leave me a message.”

Santana ended the call. Voicemail after three rings was a pretty clear indicator of where she stood with Brittany right now. She was fairly sure she was no longer qualified to be leaving Brittany voice mails.

She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself as she started her car and began driving home. On the third red traffic light, she amended that to ‘she wasn’t going to cry until she got home’.

There was a car on her driveway that she didn’t recognise, and Santana took a deep breath before getting out of her car.

Great, just the mood she was in for a surprise visitor.

There was no one in the car, but when Santana approached her house, she could see a man stand up on the porch.

Not just any man, though. The man.

“You’ve got some nerve showing yourself around here,” she spat at Schuester. She’d have kicked at him, too, but with her luck his family jewels would be permanently damaged and he’d sue her.

“Cheer up, Santana,” Schuester said, although Santana was vindicated to notice he kept his distance as if he was thinking about his family jewels, too. “I’ve got great news for you.”

Santana pushed her key into the lock. “I don’t care.”

“You will care when you find out that you’ve got your calendar pretty booked up for the upcoming months.” Schuester smiled and spread his arms like he was the benevolent uncle who’d just given Santana a pony. “You got that Beiste Productions role, you’re officially going to star in a TV show pilot!”

Santana’s heart missed a beat and she almost dropped her bag.

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” Schuester said. “See, there’s always a silver lining.”

“Big words coming from you since it’s your fault the cloud is stormy anyway.” Santana glared at him. She was lucky he made it so easy. “Email me the details and get the hell away from my house.”

Schuester’s smile dropped and he muttered something about spoiled, ungrateful people when he left, but at least he did leave.

Santana went inside and only realised she’d pulled out her phone when she looked down and realised her finger was hovering over Brittany’s name on her contacts.


	8. Chapter 8

_Trouble in Gal Pal Paradise?_

_Popstar Brittany S. Pierce and her up-and-coming actress girlfriend Santana Lopez have been feeding us so much sugary sweetness lately that we suspect they’re single-handedly responsible for causing at least a dozen cases of diabetes. But their insulin-dependent fans might be in for a break; unidentified sources tell us that Brittany and Santana are now officially on the rocks._

_While staying tight-lipped on the reasons for the sudden separation, our source tells us that Santana, while devastated, seems determined to plough on._

_Might we recommend a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for the heartache?_

Santana almost threw her tablet across the floor, but she really wasn’t rich enough to be able to have temper tantrums that cost over three hundred dollars, and anyway quickly closing the tab was maybe more satisfying anyway.

She congratulated herself on her impulse control as she heard two sets of heels clacking in the corridor – temper tantrums wouldn’t make a good first impression on co-stars – and the tablet was already halfway to her bag when the heels rounded the corner and entered her field of vision.

“Oh, Quinn,” the small brunette said, “you do have the sight! This is so exciting, we’ll need to go meet-”

“I have good deduction skills,” Quinn said, smiling at Santana while talking to the brunette. “That’s a completely different thing, Rachel. Hi, Santana. Congratulations on the part, I think you’ll be the perfect fit to it.”

“Thank you,” Santana said, standing up.

“Rachel, this is Santana Lopez,” Quinn turned to the brunette. “Santana, this is Rachel Berry.”

Santana gave her a clandestine, assessing look while shaking her hand. Rachel Berry looked a lot like she’d only just barely outgrown the children’s section of her friendly local Midwestern shopping mall; she definitely did have that air of having grown up somewhere where her performance ambitions made her different from others.

Whatever, though. Santana had never heard of her but she was repped by Quinn’s agency. She had to either be incredibly lucky or incredibly talented, most likely both. There could be worse picks for someone Santana would have to spend about half her time with for the foreseeable future.

“Very nice to meet you, Santana,” Rachel said. “I have, of course, spent quite a lot of time studying your past oeuvre to get a-”

Quinn nudged at her side gently, and Rachel shut up.

“Nice to meet you, too, Rachel,” Santana made herself say in a neutral tone.

“Oh, but I think we should hurry along,” Quinn tapped at her watch meaningfully. “Get up, Santana, all the magazines here are at least two years old anyway. Did you come here alone or with someone?”

“Alone.”

She hoped that didn’t seem weird to Quinn; Schuester probably would have liked to come with her to anything that pertained to such a potentially important role, but it seemed he’d wisely chosen to value his limbs rather than risk approaching Santana.

At least she most certainly did not feel alone as Quinn walked her and Rachel down the corridor into the large room where their first table read was to be held in.

—

The table read went quite marvellously, and Santana clung to that fact to forget everything else around her. Or at least she did as long as she could; her phone rang right as she was closing her front door after herself.

“They’ve got it all wrong, haven’t they?” her mother said on the other end of the line, obviously upset. “You and Brittany aren’t breaking up, are you, Santana?”

Santana swallowed. She should have guessed that this was coming, and come up with something she could sell to her mother as the truth.

“I’m pretty sure the details are all wrong,” she said, “but they’re exaggerating, not lying.”

She could hear the sharp intake of breath on the other end, and it took a while for her mother to say anything.

“Why? You seemed so truly happy just days ago, what happened?”

Santana bit her lip.

“I don’t know, mum. If you’d told me then that this was going to happen I’d have been as surprised as you are.”

She listened to her for a long time, trying to console her to the best of her ability. At least she didn’t have to fake the melancholy in her voice.

—

“No.”

Santana kept her gaze fixed on Schuester until he became uncomfortable with it and looked away.

“That was the plan all along, Santana, we’ve come this far-”

“I said no. Be happy the whole break-up turned out exactly as you wished, I’m not going to slander Brittany in the press just so that I can get some fucking sympathy vote here!”

“I only think of your best,” Schuester said. “Your heart is already broken, getting a little more good publicity out of this thing wouldn’t break it any more than it already is. Surely there must be things that would have left you to break up with Brittany anyway even if it hadn’t been the plan. You could just comically exaggerate those a little.”

Santana couldn’t think of any such flaws. It was very disconcerting, but she didn’t have the time to dwell on that right then.

“No,” she said. “I will do nothing but acknowledge that we’ve broken up and nod along that it is very sad, mutual decision whatever. That’s going to be it. Be happy you’re getting that much.”

“Your ungratefulness has always been a real problem.” Schuester shook her head. “You’re well on your way to becoming an A-list star, all thanks to me, and this is the sort of thing I get in thanks? Insults to my work and such stubbornness to have your own way. Need I remind you which one of us is a professional at-”

“Well obviously not you,” Santana said. “Any self-respecting professional wouldn’t stoop so low as you have.”

“You think I’ve hit low?” Schuester asked, probably trying to look threatening. Santana was too tired of the whole thing to feel very threatened. “Go on like that, and you’ll find out how low I can actually hit. How’d you like all of this to be revealed to the gossip sites. Bet they’d jump on it immediately. ‘Cold-hearted bitch breaks everyone’s favourite pop idol’s heart with publicity stunt.’ How’d you think your new pilot would do with a campaign like that?”

Santana stood up, cold fury filling her veins. She took two steps towards Schuester, close enough to threaten but hopefully so far he wouldn’t realise that she was shorter than he was.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” she said, her voice silky smooth. “You’ve never been the quickest, Schuester; how’d you think your hunt for new clients would go if they found out to what extent you meddle in your clients’ private lives? Not to mention, look around yourself. What other clients you have that are going places? You rep a bunch of hard-working, talentless people who’d do anything to get their fifteen minutes of fame. Shuck me aside, and you’ll have lost your best chance at actually creating a star.”

Will Schuester looked shaken to her core, and Santana deemed that a good meeting’s work.

“Oh, and by the way,” she said on her way out the door. “You really should go into a programme for that god-awful vest addiction of yours. I’m sure they give out pamphlets advertising for that.”

—

“Broadway, of course, has been my dream and will be my ultimate destination,” Rachel said as they were sitting on their chairs and enjoying their fifteen-minute break. “My first words were literally the lyrics to _Don’t Rain on My Parade_. But I suppose Hollywood will do for a nice stopover on my way to New York.”

“Do they give out coupons for free tacos to Broadway stars, though?” Santana asked. “Big screen or bust, Berry.”

Rachel shook her head vehemently and launched into an impassionate defence of Broadway that Santana mostly didn’t listen to.

“It would not be out of the question for you, either,” Rachel eventually said. “When I was acquainting myself with your work, I saw the karaoke episode of your previous venture, and while the sound guy should definitely be fired, even he didn’t manage to quite hide the fact that you know how to carry a tune.”

“Girl’s gotta be multifaceted these days,” Santana countered. “Doesn’t mean I want to spend seven days a week emoting in front of a bunch of yuppies who bought the tickets because this week they feel like pretending to be interested in culture.”

She had expected another tirade on the wonders of Broadway, but Rachel swallowed the insult without comment.

“I do sometimes hold small, charitable concerts,” she said. “You should join me sometime, once our public images have been linked, we would definitely be a hit and bring in more donations.”

Santana laughed, but she didn’t quite have the heart to outright tell Rachel no. Besides, it might be fun, once she got past the stage where she started to want to strangle Rachel five hours into their workday like clockwork.

“Wanky,” she said instead, pulling out her phone to signal that the conversation was over for the moment.

Her email inbox was full as usual. Invite to a small luncheon that seemed nice but probably would only have soggy food, an advert for one of her favourite shoe shops, another invite somewhere, some obvious spam about making a fortune with one single investment, invite, spam about penis enlargements, another advert, and then, sandwiched between an interview request and the confirmation of her hairdresser’s appointment, an email from Will with 'You have to watch this, for research’ in the header.

She almost scrolled past - Will Schuester’s advice was not very good on the best day, and advice linked from YouTube was generally bad even without that additional damning fact - but the alternative would have been to continue talking to Rachel about charitable concerts and probably having to listen Rachel list set lists for approximately the last hundred concerts she’d given.

It was indeed a link to a YouTube video, a segment of a talk show with a thoroughly nondescript title. Santana pulled out her headphones while the video loaded and then pressed play.

The first thing she saw was the annoying logo sequence, then the smug host and then, finally, the camera panned over to his guest.

Santana’s heart missed a beat.

Brittany had never seemed so sad as she did on the ugly yellow sofa, wearing a surprisingly tasteful owl-print jumpsuit (surprisingly tasteful considering that it was an owl-print jumpsuit) and smiling like she had been told to do so at gunpoint. Santana had been with Brittany for months, she loved Brittany; she could recognise a fake smile any day. But this was not even Brittany’s usual fake smile, the one she used when she’d just have rather been petting her cat on her sofa at home. No, Santana had never seen this smile before, but she was rather sure she knew what it was meant to hide.

“You have a new album coming out in a few weeks,” the host said in a voice that probably had inspired Schuester. “But that’s not the thing about you that’s making the headlines right now. Do you want to talk about that?”

“No one really wants to talk about break-ups,” Brittany said. “Especially if it was all your fault.”

Santana had to do a lot to keep her jaw from dropping. Well, at least Schuester couldn’t go and argue that she’d have to start slinging mud before Brittany could do it first.

She didn’t even hear what the host said, but it had to be a question, or a prompt, since Brittany went on, “I’m so bad at relationships I can’t keep them up with even the best people. I just hope I don’t hurt them so much that they’re ruined for others after. It’s obvious I’ll never have one that lasts.”

Santana wanted to reach into the screen and give Brittany a hug, never mind that that the interview was long over and Brittany was probably somewhere else pretending she wasn’t sad.

The questions turned to other topics, and Santana took the chance to scroll down to the comment section. It was as big a mistake as it always was; she could have guessed that there would be a comment with 200 upvotes telling the world that Brittany had cheated, but she really hadn’t needed to witness it first-hand.

“Okay, break’s over!” the assistant director shouted at them, clapping her hands together like she was very delighted by the fact.

Santana forced herself take a deep breath, closed the tab and put a fake smile on her face. The problem about doing comedy was that it was difficult to be genuinely funny when your heart was breaking.

She’d have to try, at least. It seemed that the only good thing in her life right then was the show, she’d have hated to lose the job before it even properly started.

—

She didn’t lose it although the takes definitely were not her best. It was picked up for twelve episodes after the pilot aired, with an option to expand it into a full season. Santana clinked champagne glasses at the party hosted to celebrate the announcement and spent the rest of the evening avoiding Schuester, who luckily seemed all too eager to spend the whole night sweet-talking Emma Pillsbury in a delightfully unsuccessful way, it seemed to Santana when she looked back at them across the floor.

Working with Schuester had never been pleasant, but their already strained working relationship deteriorated even further. Schuester was, as was to be expected, overjoyed at the rumours of Brittany cheating, and wanted Santana to confirm them as soon and as reproachingly as possible while shedding crocodile tears about having had her heart broken. Santana responded by staunchly refusing to talk about the details of their break-up to anyone who asked, including Rachel who brought her a 'muffin basket of heartbreak’ in a touching yet vaguely horrifying gesture.

She was yet again on her break, staring at her phone and trying to force herself write a response to an email Schuester had sent her about next week’s schedule when she sensed someone stop right next to her.

“May I sit down?” Emma Pillsbury asked, fiddling with a notepad.

“It’s your set,” Santana said and made a gesture at the chairs around them. “Take your pick.”

Gingerly, Emma sat down and smoothed over her skirt, settling the notepad on the chair next to her. “Santana, you cannot go on like this.”

She immediately straightened her back, set down her feet and assumed her most pleasant and approachable pose. “I’m sorry if my work has-”

“No, no, no,” Emma hastened to say. “Your work is excellent, we are very satisfied with you professionally. I meant that-” She stopped, took a long breath and seemed to make a decision. “I have been down the Will Schuester rabbit hole, and you have to find your way out of Wonderland before you lose yourself in it.”

Santana had a very uncomfortable feeling she had to thread very carefully to avoid having to hear tear-eyed confessions about Will Schuester’s love life that she’d never wanted to know about.

“I know it’s not really working out,” she said, “but I don’t really know who else I could turn to. Believe me, it’s not out of any sort of affection or loyalty for him that I’m staying.”

“You’re making waves already,” Emma said, “and you’ll make even more. Normally when I try to give these talks I tell people to be proactive, but maybe, in this case, everything will just sort itself out without any effort.”

Her smile was weird when she said that, like she knew something that Santana didn’t, but she was one of her bosses; she could hardly force her to talk as she stood up and left.

—

“Santana,” Quinn said a few days later as Santana was pulling on her jacket, ready to leave for home to have a very belated dinner, “do you have a few moments?”

“Sure.”

Her stomach betrayed her, letting out a particularly loud growl just then, and Quinn gave her an amused look.

“Body language tells us more than words ever could,” she said and made a vague gesture with her hand. “I won’t keep you now. Do you have time tomorrow? I have something I’d like to discuss with you, could you drop by my office in the afternoon?”

It was probably about Rachel and her charitable concerts, Santana thought as she shrugged. It couldn’t be too bad, she could use an article written about her that didn’t mention the break-up.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be there around four, if that’s okay?”

Quinn gave her a satisfied smile. “Yes, four would be perfect.”


	9. Chapter 9

The company Quinn worked for had much nicer offices than William Schuester (to no one’s surprise), but they were still offices and offices by their very nature were full of long corridors of rooms filled with paper. At least Quinn had painted hers a light shade of blue and made an effort (it seemed) to keep her papers in the filing cabinets.

“You had something you wanted to discuss?” Santana said as she walked into the room.

Quinn waited until she’d taken a chair before leaning forwards, elbows on her desk, looking a lot more serious than Santana had thought one small charity concert would require.

“On behalf of the company, I have an offer for you. We’d love to take you on as a client.”

Santana stared at her, only realising after a few seconds that her mouth was hanging open. She closed it quickly.

“That’s a really funny joke,” she said, not feeling even the faintest urge to laugh.

“No.” Quinn gave her a level look. “It would be a cruel joke if it were one. It’s not. I’m dead serious. We want to rep you. You’re a rising star and everyone knows we can offer you much more than William Schuester and his second-rate agency or methods ever could.”

Santana continued to stare at her. “You’re actually serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

For a moment, they just looked at each other, until Santana finally let herself believe it.

“Of course,” she said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice at least. It probably wouldn’t be a good negotiating position to let it be known that she had trouble not to jump up and hug Quinn right then and there. “You are absolutely right. I would love to employ you.”

Quinn smiled. “That’s wonderful.”

—

It happened faster than she’d ever thought it would, which was probably because she didn’t do very much at all, all too happy to leave dealing with most of it to Quinn, including talking to William Schuester. She read his emails, full of veiled threats and hurt ego and all that, and then forwarded them to Quinn. She didn’t know what Quinn did with them, but soon after they stopped.

“It’s official,” Quinn said one afternoon after Santana had signed a pile of papers. “Welcome to your new home, Santana Lopez.”

Santana smiled. “I couldn’t be happier.”

She thought she heard Quinn hum a tone as she stood up to file the papers, but she wasn’t quite sure.

“And now for the unpleasant things.” Quinn flashed her a quick, sardonic smile as she sat down. “I don’t know the whole story, but Mr Schuester made enough vague hints to make it very clear that I should. You and Brittany, it wasn’t just a personal thing gone south the way most relationships do?”

Santana bit her lip. There probably was no point in trying to hide it.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”

She spilled the whole thing, sparing very little detail and sometimes having to catch herself to remind that Quinn was not her friend, she was her management; she wouldn’t care about that sort of detail at all.

“I loved her,” she said as she’d finally filled Quinn in on the last, miserable morning. “I was going to tell her, I should have told her the night before, I just-”

Quinn nodded, sympathetic, and started toying with her pen.

“I can’t fix that,” she said. “I’m not your fairy godmother and we should both be glad about it. But I can do something about the public side of things.”

“She took the fall.” Santana looked away. “I treated her like crap and she went out and let everyone think she cheated on me. I-”

She bit her lip and made damn sure she didn’t cry.

Quinn watched her for a moment. “You should get going, the table read is in an hour and traffic’s hell at this hour.” She gave her a quick smile. “I’ll send you a few ideas about all that.”

Santana nodded and was off. She did get to her car before the first tear fell.

—

She took a deep breath. Everyone would just think it was the nerves. Actors had them too.

It wasn’t her favourite talk show, but it had more viewers and that was good enough for what she’d come to say.

“You’ve had a lot on your plate this past month,” the host said. “You’ve been filming a TV show that’s already a favourite among the critics, and I hear there was a small charity concert with your co-star Rachel Berry.”

Santana willed herself to smile and make it look genuine. “They do say that sleep’s for when you’re dead.”

“Things certainly seem to be picking up for you.” The host glanced at the camera. “Getting over a relationship that ends badly was probably difficult.”

Santana hoped no one noticed that her breathing was a little more erratic than it usually was.

“It’s always difficult,” she said. “Especially as you have to come to terms with the fact that you always need two to tango. You have to recognise what you did wrong, too, and that’s very difficult when it’s something you cared very much about.”

The host raised his eyebrow, probably for show but anyway. “This is the first time you’ve talked about it, and I have to say, that’s not the version I’ve been hearing a lot.”

“Yeah,” Santana said. “It’s not the version I’ve been hearing either, and- I’m a private person, I don’t like to air my feelings or my dirty laundry for the world to see, but… If it’s going to be there, I want it to be accurate, you know? And when I have the paparazzi asking me who my girlfriend cheated on me with, there comes a point when you really just have to open your mouth and tell them, and everyone else who’s wondering the same, that she didn’t. It wasn’t exactly a happy, mutual break-up, but to say that it’s all her fault is even further away from the truth.”

Quinn had advised her against telling the whole truth, and she wasn’t going to, but she had spent almost an hour thinking about how she could speak of it with only lies of omission.

“That’s a very sage position to take,” the host said and made a show of applauding her.

Santana laughed as if that was funny. “Well,” she said, “a lot of people are going to be seeing me doing a lot of stupid things onscreen, I have to protect my reputation, you know?”

The host laughed, and it was probably for show too but at least it seemed a little more genuine. “About those stupid things,” he said, taking the conversation exactly in the direction Santana had been hoping he would, “we’ve already seen you run a mile in high heels. What’s next?”

Santana smiled. “I can’t exactly spoil it, but a little bird told me that the elevator in Samantha’s building is not as safe as it looks like.”

The host made an exaggerated face, miming excitement, and Santana was all too happy to continue to give titbits about her work that she’d been told to work in there somewhere.

—

“Come on, Santana,” Rachel pulled her by the wrist. “It’s going to be fun! You liked the concert, didn’t you?”

“It was a concert,” Santana said, catching up with Rachel so that they looked at least a little more dignified. “And Mercedes was great. But this is not a small gathering to discuss how wonderful her new music is and how exciting it is that she might star in a movie musical, this is a VIP after party with tons of people and my feet hurt.”

“At moments like that,” Rachel said, “I always think about how it will make a wonderful anecdote in my autobiography and add a nice touch of humour before I start talking about how I met-”

Santana groaned. She couldn’t tell if Rachel had told her that to shut her up or because it was actually true. Knowing Rachel, the latter was definitely not out of the question.

“Okay,” she said. “Take me to the party.”

It took her five minutes to be happy she came along, which incidentally coincided with the five minutes it took for Mercedes to spot her and walk up to her with a smile on her face and a champagne glass on each hand. She offered one of them to Santana.

“Quinn mentioned Rachel had plans to come,” she said.

“I’m starting to think that her ultimate career plans are to become an omniscient goddess,” Santana said. “And an unstoppable meddler. You were great onstage, though.”

“Thank you. How’s your filming going? I saw the pilot but I haven’t yet had the time to get any deeper into it. Please tell me Maria shouts at that creepy guy with the hat.”

Santana smiled, taking a sip of her champagne. “Fast-forward till episode five and you’ll have your wish.”

They chatted some more until Mercedes’s attention was claimed by someone else who wanted to congratulate her on a great show, and Santana slipped away to get herself another glass of something from the bar.

Or at least that was her intention before she happened to glance towards the dance floor and spotted a very familiar blonde figure that never stopped to dance with one person for more than a fleeting moment.

“Pineapple juice,” she said once she could finally look away and get to the bar.

The bartender gave her a quick smile. “Early morning tomorrow, huh?”

She wasn’t the type for drunken confessions anyway, and one flute of champagne definitely wasn’t enough to change that. “Something like that.”

She got her glass of juice, without a straw or any frilly additions, and sought out a small, empty table to enjoy it in, her back purposefully turned to the dance floor. Brittany had all the rights to do whatever she pleased now, with whoever she pleased, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt Santana’s heart to look at it and know that if Brittany’s eye would happen to meet hers, she wouldn’t get that quick, happy smile that had once seemed almost like an instinctual response on Brittany’s part.

There were two empty chairs across from her, and soon enough Rachel and a friend of hers, Santana had never met her before, sat down to fill them. They chatted about dancing - Rachel was planning to take lessons to improve her Broadway chances - and Rachel’s friend kept glancing at the dancefloor and commenting on different people she saw, but if she saw Brittany, she at least didn’t mention her by name.

“Aren’t you happy that you came?” Rachel shouted through the music at Santana.

“Yeah,” Santana said, tilting her glass so that the last drops of juice would fall into her mouth. “It’s been fun.”

“Do you want to dance with us?” Rachel’s friend asked her. “I know that look in Rachel’s eye, she’s about to drag me there to comment on her technique and I need reinforcements to keep me on a dancing mood.”

Santana hoped her expression wasn’t the grimace it felt like. Even worse than having to watch Brittany dance with everyone who wasn’t her would be to be on the dancefloor and see herself purposefully skipped.

“I think I’ll skip, sorry. I’ll go get myself another drink.”

Rachel’s friend made a show of putting on her best puppy eyes as Rachel began dragging her towards the dancefloor, and Santana stared down at her empty glass before realising it probably looked more morose than she meant for it to and got up.

She’d just made it to the bar and ordered another drink when she felt a hand on her arm.

“Santana.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about missing last week's update! To make up for that, here's two chapters all at once. Better late than never and all that.

Santana startled. She didn’t know that many people at the party, but that was definitely the last person she’d have expected to seek her out.

Brittany wasn’t looking at her when Santana took in her face, chewing her lip and looking far too interested in the way the bartender was mixing a drink a few metres away from them.

“Hi,” Santana said, not knowing how else to react.

“Hi.” Brittany looked down at the floor. “Are you ordering a drink to kill time before your next date arrives?”

It sounded like a cruel statement, a malicious reminder about their first date, but Brittany didn’t sound malicious; she still wouldn’t meet Santana’s eye and her tone was sad if anything.

Right then the bartender came back with Santana’s glass.

“Cranberry juice for you.”

Brittany looked down at the glass and bit her lip again.

“Can I get you something, too?” the bartender asked.

Brittany shook her head, her grip on Santana’s arm tightening.

It felt awkward standing there like that, so Santana took a hesitant step away from the counter, and Brittany followed her, still holding on to Santana. As they got to Santana’s table, though, Brittany took her past it and into one of the more secluded booths further way from the bar and the crowd.

Like a ridiculous straight couple that couldn’t keep away from each other even to eat (Santana would have appreciated the irony in some other situation), they sat on the same side of the booth, Brittany settling uncomfortably close to Santana.

“I saw your interview,” she said, looking down at the table. “You said it wasn’t my fault that we broke up.”

“Well,” Santana swallowed, “what else could I have done? It definitely wasn’t-”

“But you only dated me so that more people would know you and like you.” Brittany’s voice was small; Santana wanted to hug her, but she reminded herself that despite their closeness reminding her of different times, that probably wouldn’t have been welcome right then. “It was all for you, so I thought that I should tell everyone it was my fault so that people would like you even more. I didn’t think you’d do things halfway.”

“Brittany, I didn’t do it because-”

“Don’t say that,” Brittany said and crumbled against Santana’s shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably.

There was nothing else she could do. Santana manoeuvred her arm around Brittany to pat at her back.

“I won’t,” she whispered in Brittany’s hair, hoping her tone was soothing. “It’s okay, I won’t.”

“I’m only ever good for people to use my fame,” Brittany said between her sobs.

“You’re good for so much more than that.” Santana stroked at Brittany’s hair. “You-”

“I know,” Brittany said, pushing her cheek against Santana’s shoulder, probably to dry her tears before new ones would fall. “I’m good for that too. No one wants me for more, though.”

Santana wanted to tell her that wasn’t true either, but it didn’t seem like her words had much of a soothing effect, so she contended with stroking up and down Brittany’s back and whispering quick reassurances into Brittany’s ear.

She didn’t know how long they stayed there just like that, Brittany crying quietly and Santana trying to soothe her without words.

“Too much to drink?” some douchebag in a fedora asked as he walked past their table. “Damn, I’d been hoping to make it my turn to dance all night long.”

He stretched out the last words, and Santana wanted to punch his gross face.

“We should get you home,” she said to Brittany once the fedora was gone. “Okay?”

Brittany made a momentary effort to stop crying. “Will you come with me?”

“Yeah, I’ll make sure you get home safe and sound.”

She helped Brittany up and offered her the handkerchief she had in her purse. It didn’t do much to hide the state of Brittany’s tear-blotched face, but at least Brittany could dry the tear tracks with it.

They managed to dodge the paparazzi waiting outside for snapshots of people leaving, or at least they didn’t get a good picture of Brittany’s face, just the overall impression of the two of them getting into the same car, Brittany leaning heavily against Santana’s side.

The next thing she’d have to answer questions about relapsing after a break-up and about possibly getting together.

Brittany didn’t say a word during the drive home, and Santana followed her example, just holding on to Brittany’s hand that had been left in hers from the walk to the car, running small circles around Brittany’s knuckles with her thumb and hoping it was soothing.

“You should come in,” Brittany said when the car stopped in front of her house. “Please.”

Santana bit her lip. It was a spectacularly bad idea in many ways, but then again Brittany looked like she was going to cry yet again the moment there would be no witnesses other than Santana, and she’d definitely deserve worse punishment for what she’d done to Brittany.

“Okay.”

Besides, Brittany’s house was enormous. She was pretty sure there were at least three guestrooms that were as far away from Brittany’s room as possible.

She led Brittany up to the porch and then waited patiently as Brittany fished her keys out of her bag.

After declining the glass of water Brittany offered, Santana found herself yet again on that very familiar sofa, with Brittany cuddled against her side. It couldn’t have been different from the two last times they were there, but somehow it felt like both of them combined.

“I’m so sor-” Santana started, but she couldn’t go on any longer because suddenly Brittany’s lips were on hers.

Santana stayed still for the first seconds of the kiss, completely taken aback, until she got back to her senses and gently pushed Brittany away.

“I’m sorry,” Brittany said and burst into tears again.

“It’s okay.” Santana stroked at her hair and let her nose nuzzle against Brittany’s forehead when it was conveniently right there. “It’s okay, Brittany, I’m not- I was just surprised, I didn’t think you-”

Brittany cried harder, and Santana thought it best to shut up.

They stayed like that until Brittany’s sobs slowly quieted down.

“Do you want to go to sleep?” Santana asked eventually. It was well past midnight; she definitely hoped Brittany had thought to clear her schedule for the following day.

Wordlessly, Brittany nodded, her face still hidden against Santana’s shoulder.

They walked up to Brittany’s room, Brittany still holding on to Santana as if for support.

“Right,” Santana said on the door. “I’ll just-”

“Will you sleep with me?” Brittany asked in a small, quiet voice.

Santana bit her lip. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea, I could just find a guestro-”

“I meant it metaphorically.” Brittany sighed. “I miss our sweet lady kisses.”

That was even worse, the actual rational part of Santana’s brain pointed out. She rubbed at Brittany’s back.

“How much did you have to drink?”

“Four glasses, but none of them had any alcohol in them.”

Brittany looked at her, her eyes puffy and her make-up absolutely wrecked, her dress slightly off-kilter in a way even Brittany did not manage to pull off. There was nothing in the world that Santana wanted to do more than take the pain away from Brittany’s eyes.

“You don’t have to,” Brittany said. “It’s okay, I’m not-”

This time it was Santana who interrupted her words by smashing their lips together and throwing her arms around Brittany.

It was slow, this time, but not the kind of pleasant, sweet slow it had been before. Santana was fairly sure Brittany cried when Santana helped her out of her dress, and when Brittany pulled the blanket over them and kissed Santana’s neck, the tears were probably all Santana’s.

It was probably the sloppiest sex Santana had ever had; they kissed all throughout it (Santana had a bad feeling Brittany was doing it so that neither of them could say anything at all), their hands roaming each other’s bodies under the blankets. Brittany’s hand reached down to Santana’s hips first and Santana gasped into the kiss as Brittany began slowly circling her clit, brushing and stroking against it until Santana came with a small sound that Brittany kissed silent. After that, Brittany clung to Santana as Santana returned the favour.

“Will you stay here?” Brittany asked, arms still around Santana as Santana moved her hand up to Brittany’s waist.

It couldn’t be any worse than what they’d already done. “Okay.”

Brittany fell asleep very soon after, probably exhausted from dancing and later crying, but it was almost three when Santana managed to drift off, her hand still carding through Brittany’s hair as if she thought Brittany’s sleep needed reassurance as well.

—

She woke up alone. That was hardly a surprise.

This time, she dressed completely until braving to leave the room. It didn’t seem to matter, though, as she walked the whole house without finding Brittany. She did find Lord Tubbington, though, glaring at her from the hall and then following her around as if she needed supervision not to- She didn’t even know what his cat brain thought she might do, probably physically steal and break Brittany’s heart or something. She’d always thought cats were a little weird.

The only sign of Brittany that she found was in the kitchen, a note on the stack of bright-coloured papers Brittany kept there.

_Lizards don’t really want company when they wake up, it said, but if you need any flies you can take anything from the fridge. I still have your raspberry jam._

_P.S. It’s not the same jar of jam but it’s still the same._

Santana took a deep breath, folded the paper in two and pushed it into her bag, taking out her phone and calling herself a taxi before she could start crying.

A shower and a change of clothes helped her feel better, and she had an afternoon meeting with Quinn and her associates that she had been mildly looking forwards to.

“And then we were thinking that a talk show appearance would be great here,” one of Quinn’s associates said and indicated a Friday somewhere in the next month. “I have a couple of strings I could pull to make it a really good one.”

“Sounds good,” Santana said.

“And then there’s the photo shoot in two weeks,” another associate said. “We should talk about what you’re going to say, are you free next Thursday?”

“I’m filming the whole day, sorry.”

“You’re not doing anything then, Rosie,” Quinn said with a small smile. “Even TV stars get a lunch break, do it then.”

Santana would have objected – she liked eating lunch and talking with her co-workers, and even Rachel had been growing on her – but today she couldn’t quite find the energy.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“That’s it settled then,” Rosie said and ticked something off her list.

“Should we talk about what we’re going to do about the pictures?” someone asked.

Santana furrowed her brow. “What pictures?”

“From last night,” Quinn said. “They’re pretty blurry, but celebrity make-ups are exciting for the vultures and you might get asked about it.”

Santana swallowed. She could still feel Brittany’s body against her if she tried; now didn’t exactly feel the best moment to talk about it to people most of whom didn’t even know the whole story behind all of it. (She assumed; Quinn seemed like the type to be upfront about what she’d passed on to others.)

“I was just looking out for her,” she said, hoping that her crossed arms would hide her insecurity. “There’s no story there.”

“Tell that to them,” Rosie muttered.

Quinn pursed her lips. “There’s not much we can give. If anyone asks, you stick to that story and change the subject as quickly as possible, okay, Santana?”

Santana nodded, words getting stuck in her throat.

She’d never felt as thankful towards Quinn as when she cut the meeting short and told everyone to go home.

“Santana.”

Santana turned back to Quinn who was still gathering up her papers.

“What?”

“I’m not saying this as your manager,” Quinn said, finishing with the papers and walking up to her. “I’ve had a lot of bad break-ups, and a little advice: it doesn’t get better by going home with your ex.”

Santana pursed her lips. “It wasn’t like-”

“It wasn’t like that, yeah, I’ve told myself that before.” Quinn put her hand lightly on Santana’s arm. “I don’t know what happened last night between you and Brittany, and I don’t expect you to tell me. Just- Be careful, Santana. Not with paparazzi or pictures or whatever, just- With yourself. You made a mistake once, and maybe it was a huge one, but you don’t need to punish yourself for it, that won’t make it any better.”

Santana swallowed.

“Thanks, Quinn.”

She got a lop-sided smile in return. “No problem.”

She’d been planning on running lines for the rest of the afternoon and evening, trying to forget the memory of the previous night by immersing herself in a completely different life where, for the moment, nothing else mattered except for the noisy neighbours with the atrocious taste in music, but she only got to her car before she felt the first tear fall down her cheek.

She couldn’t go home alone, not unless she wanted to spend the night bawling her eyes out.

The phone rang only twice before her mother picked up.

“Hello, honey, how are you?”

“Mum,” Santana said, trying to swallow the tears. It didn’t help make her voice sound any less desperate or sad. “Can I come over, for tonight or a couple of days?”

She didn’t think she had anything that evening that she couldn’t cancel. She really didn’t care about her spinning class right then.

“Of course, Santana.” Her mother took a deep breath. “You can always come here. Are you leaving soon?”

Santana reached into her purse for her keys. “Yeah, I’m just- I’m already in the car.”

“We’ll see you in a couple of hours, then,” her mother said. “Drive carefully, honey.”

Santana swallowed and tried to brush tears off her face. “Yeah, mum, I will.”


	11. Chapter 11

The two-hour drive was two hours she desperately didn’t want to spend alone, but she got through it by imagining getting to her parents’ house, getting home. It was good that the weather was great for driving, though, and there wasn’t that much traffic once she got away from L.A.; when she parked her car she could no longer remember anything about the journey.

Her mother opened the door before she even got to the porch; she’d probably been looking out for her from the window. Just one look at Santana, and she was spreading her arms to envelope Santana in a hug. Santana let herself get lost in it, burying her face against her mother’s shoulder, and almost started to cry again.

“I’ve been baking cookies,” her mother said once Santana could finally bring herself to pull away. “You look like you could use a plate of cookies and a tall glass of milk.”

Santana would have protested - she wasn’t seven anymore, her mother couldn’t make her feel better with just baked goods - but the offer did actually sound far too pleasant to pass up.

Her mother let her devour the whole plateful without a word, and to drink the whole glass of milk, just chatting idly about things that had happened in the neighbourhood and how Santana’s father was still in denial about the fact that his hair was currently more grey than its earlier black. It was only when Santana had put her plate and glass in the dishwasher and sat back down that her mother sat down on the chair next to her.

“I know you like to keep things to yourself, honey,” she said, “and you don’t need a reason to come here. But it’s just- Your mother worries, you know. Spill it.”

Santana took a deep breath. Her mother probably would worry a bit less once she heard the whole story, and she did have a very effective face of disapproval.

“I didn’t start dating Brittany because I liked her,” she said, wanting to get the worst out of the way quickly. “I started dating her because our managers set us up. Only they didn’t tell her, and I didn’t, either.”

She didn’t dare look at her mother after that, and went on with her story, eyes firmly on the table. She’d left three crumbs that kind of formed a triangle on the table when she’d been cleaning out her things.

She told her mother everything, sparing no detail aside from the sexual ones; she was her mother, Santana could tell her things she couldn’t tell Quinn.

“She hates me now,” she said quietly once she’d finished the story. “She must hate me now, I hate myself a little for what I did to her, and I- I love her, mum, I really love her, and I fucked it all up just because-”

She should have told Brittany that night, pulled herself away from Brittany’s kisses and just told her what had been on her mind. It might not have made Brittany any more willing to stay with Santana, but at least Santana could have told it to her better than William Schuester indubitably had, and at least then she would have walked away without leaving Brittany thinking she was only good for fame and sex.

She braved a glance at her mother, who was shaking her head.

“It must have been horrible for her to find out like that,” she said. “Poor girl, she’s so in love with you, it was plain for everyone to see even if they’re not your mother who just know these kinds of things.

Santana hiccupped. "I should have told her myself, I meant to but I-”

Her mother gave her a look. “I can guess what you did, I’m your mother, not an innocent little schoolgirl.”

Santana tried to answer, but there was nothing she could say.

“She hates me,” she repeated, feeling the tears start falling again.

The chair screeched against the floor, and her mother’s arms were around her again.

“Oh, I doubt she hates you,” her mother said, stroking at Santana’s hair, “but that probably makes it even worse.”

“She should hate me,” Santana managed between her sobs. “I should have- I should have just told her, pulled away and told her and dealt with the consequences before fucking Will Schuester managed to.”

She felt her mother tense at the mention of Schuester, which was incredibly gratifying because when her mother tensed like that it meant that she hated someone too. Granted, they’d never met but her mother had heard enough.

“Yes,” her mother said, but her hand was still stroking gently at Santana’s hair. “You definitely should have. We raised you better than that.”

She cried more, but it wasn’t at her mother’s words; she knew she’d done wrong, it was actually good to hear someone openly say it.

“But the good thing about relationships is that there’s always potential to fix them,” her mother continued. Santana could argue that that really hurt, either. “You think your father’s never hurt me really deeply, or that I haven’t hurt him? It’s not over just because she had good reason to leave you.”

Santana thought back to the jam in Brittany’s fridge. “It kind of is when the only time you speak afterwards you have sex and she cries basically the whole time.”

“Hush,” her mother said, her smile bringing a small smile to Santana’s lips as well. “If it’s over, I’m never going to see Brittany again and if it’s so, I’d rather remember a cheery ray of sunshine who made my daughter blush and avert her eyes a lot like she was really happy instead of images of my daughter having sad sex. I might guess it happened but don’t tell me about it.”

Santana laughed and reached for a tissue.

—

Her father pushed sweat off his forehead and looked at the ground they were turning for a new flower bed. It was his new pet project; he was very excited about the roses he was going to plant there.

“It’s been a little chilly lately,” he said.

Santana positioned her spade for the next dig. “Yeah, I’ve been checking the weather forecast.”

There was a long silence during which they both concentrated on the task at hand.

“I talked to your mother,” her father said eventually. “I’m sorry about what happened with Brittany.”

Santana swallowed and did not look up from the ground. “Yeah, me too.”

“Guess I’ll never use that grill again,” her father said. “It’s a pity. It was a great grill, and she was a great girl for you.”

Santana bit her lip and pushed the spade into the ground a little more forcefully than she usually did.

“She was,” she said, not looking at her father. “She really was.”

—

Maybe it was because she was with her parents, maybe it was simply because she was _not_ in L.A. (probably both), but by the time she went to sleep that evening, she felt she could breathe a lot easier. She would have stayed longer, but the next afternoon they were reshooting a scene and she had to get back after lunch.

“We love you,” her mother told her as she pulled Santana into a hug.

“I love you, too,” she muttered back, but at least this time the words didn’t bring tears in her eyes.

—

“Did you get the chance to look at that script I sent you?” Quinn asked, casually perched on top of one of the counters in make-up and probably playing Angry Birds at the same time.

Santana tried not to move her head as Cathy came back with more eye shadow and Santana had to close her eyes.

“No, not yet.”

When she could open her eyes again, Quinn had mostly discarded her phone and seemed to be concentrating hard on swinging her legs while not letting her wedge-heel shoes literally drop off her feet.

"Rosie told me that those email interview questions she forwarded to you are still unanswered.”

Santana would have bit her lip, but Cathy had finished applying the lip gloss just five minutes earlier. She’d meant to do all that the day before, but instead of the productive evening she’d envisioned she’d ended up driving for hours and doing household chores with her parents. That didn’t sound like an excuse you gave to your management just weeks after they’d taken you on.

“I’m not judging,” Quinn said, her voice dropping. “You look a lot better now than yesterday, that’s worth more than a few delayed things.”

It was a surprisingly humane way of looking at it that Santana had rarely heard from Will Schuester. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Quinn say it, though. “I did come up with a theme for the speech I’m giving at that event next Saturday. If that makes you feel any better.”

“Oh, it’s open bar,” Quinn said, but she was smiling. “If you just came up with stuff on the fly and failed miserably, the help would be near.” She gave Santana a look Santana couldn’t decipher. “They announced all the speakers a few days ago.”

“Mercedes said Unique Adams would be there.” Cathy let out a quiet noise Santana had learnt meant annoyance, and Santana shut her mouth and concentrated on being still again.

“I’ve always liked her work,” Cathy said as if to make sure there wouldn’t be silence to tempt Santana to speak. “I bet she gives great speeches, too.”

“She does,” Quinn said. “Brittany’s speaking, too.”

Santana’s next breath was deeper than normal, but that didn’t count if no one noticed.

—

“That dress looks great on you,” Santana said as she found Mercedes in the crowd the next Saturday.

“I know.” Mercedes did a little twirl, and they both laughed. “Yours, too.”

Santana smoothed down the front of her dress and then checked that she still had her speech in her clutch. Yeah, there they were; it seemed that if Quinn needed an excuse to drink that evening, Santana at least wasn’t going to give her one.

Then again, Santana thought as she looked around the room and spotted Quinn talking to Brittany in floral overalls with grey piping that definitely should not have come off so fashionable, perhaps it wouldn’t be Quinn who’d need a few drinks to get through the night.

It seemed that Mercedes had spotted them, too. For a moment, Santana was afraid she was going to say something, but luckily the next thing Mercedes said was very pointedly about a producer that she was probably going to strangle if she wasn’t careful.

Unique Adams gave the first speech - great as Cathy had assumed; Santana was quite certain Cathy would later watch it on YouTube or something - but it was the announcement of the second speaker that made Santana’s heart first skip a beat and then start to compensate for that by beating much faster.

“Rainclouds,” Brittany said, “mice and dust balls. They’re all grey, and everyone knows that all grey things are sad.”

It was a good speech in a way that Santana would have expected a speech from Brittany to be good; it was engaging and thought-provoking, and as far as Santana could tell, none of the things that elicited laughter from the audience were things that Brittany felt so seriously about that the laughter would hurt her.

She applauded perhaps a little louder than she should have, a little too excitedly for a speech on sadness and (in veiled terms, at least inasmuch as Brittany could intentionally veil anything) heartbreak given by her ex-girlfriend.

“Just one to go before you,” Mercedes whispered in her ear.

Santana was just glad she didn’t comment on anything Brittany had said.

She didn’t remember much of anything of the third speaker, partially because the excitement for her own upcoming performance was starting to kick in, but mostly because her mind preferred lingering on Brittany’s speech.

She’d search her out that night, Santana promised herself. Her mother was perhaps wrong; most likely she was. There was no way Brittany would want her back, would ever trust her again enough to even consider it, and Santana understood. She probably would have done the same. But she did owe Brittany an apology, one that was not tainted by Brittany barely hearing it past her tears and a quick hook-up later that night. If Brittany would just listen, and Santana couldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to, Santana would give her that and then walk out of her life if that was what Brittany wanted.

She took a deep breath, pushed the thought out of her mind and assumed an easy smile as she began walking towards the front of the room.

At least the theme of her speech would be suitable.

“We all have regrets,” she said after a quick anecdote to get a laugh out of the audience. “Some of them are bigger than others.”

She didn’t dare seek out Brittany’s eyes, just in case they would be exactly as reproachful as Santana deserved or as sad as Brittany’s own speech would have implied.

She’d do that later, she told herself. After the speeches and the dinner. There was always time for mingling and networking towards the end of these things; there could be no better way to spend it than apologising to Brittany.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... So, ummm, hi, long time no update. Sorry about that. We will hopefully return to our regularly scheduled programme from now on.

The dinner was excellent, and Mercedes and Quinn were great company as usual. Santana could have done with a little less perceptiveness, though.

“It’s okay to stand up and go search her now,” Quinn said as Santana glanced at Brittany the third time after a few people had stood up and walked over to other tables to chat. “You don’t have to wait for five more minutes or whatever it is that you’re counting towards.”

“Besides,” Mercedes added with a soft smile, “she’s been looking back at least as much as you have.”

Santana took a deep breath, stood up and began making her way towards the table Brittany was sat in, almost on the other side of the room.

She got waylaid a few times by people who wanted to thank her for her speech or simply express their admiration for her work, and when she managed to extract herself from the latest of those people, Brittany was gone from her table. Santana managed a goodbye instead of a curse at the poor woman who just very much enjoyed her comedic timing and seemed to have no sense of time passing herself, if the length she talked at was any indication, and began scanning the room. Brittany was nowhere in sight, but it was quite unlikely that she would have left already.

That in mind, Santana picked up an idle conversation with the first person she came across that seemed to be open to it, exchanging pleasantries and platitudes all the while discreetly trying to find Brittany.

“Excuse me,” she eventually said. “I need to-”

She made a vague gesture towards the bathroom and left.

At least the bathroom offered her the privacy to take a few more deep breaths, make herself not to cry out of frustration and a hint of desperation and then gather herself up again.

If she couldn’t talk to Brittany that evening, she could do it later. It was highly unlikely that this was the last night she’d ever see Brittany.

Even that dismissing thought made Santana’s stomach tie itself up in knots.

She took the last breath for reassurance, pushed a lock of her hair out of the way and stepped out of the stall.

“Brittany!”

She didn’t even need the distinctive cat-print fabric of the overalls or the reflection of Brittany’s face in the mirror; she was officially that poor forlorn sad sack who could recognise the object of her affections just by her back. It might have been romantic if it wasn’t so plain sad.

Brittany turned, and at least she didn’t start crying just at the sight of Santana.

“Santana,” she said. “I liked your speech, especially all the mice. I’m sure they liked it too, and Lord Tubbington as well because he likes it when they feel sad and run slower because crying is distracting.”

“I really enjoyed your speech, too,” Santana said as she made her way to the sinks and washed her hands. “There’s just- You have a way of looking at things that really makes you rethink things. You could have been a philosopher if you didn’t become a pop star.”

“I would have become a maths genius,” Brittany said. “I had a scholarship to MIT and everything, but then I realised that the power of dance is stronger than even the rainbows that come out of the square root of four.”

Santana swallowed and reached for a tissue to dry her hands. “You never told me.”

Brittany bit her lip. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

“You could have become both,” Santana said. “Or all three.”

“Da Vinci has that code, though,” Brittany said. “I always thought it was mean of him not to just say it flat out and save everyone the trouble. I wouldn’t want to be like that.”

Santana chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much all multipurpose geniuses in all of history were total jerks. Just goes to show you’re smarter than any of them.”

They walked out of the bathroom and took seats in Brittany’s table, continuing the discussion with Santana looking for an in on the topic she really wanted to bring up. An acquaintance of Brittany’s stopped them and started a conversation on movie musicals that they both found themselves sucked into, and it was undoubtedly pleasant but didn’t quite manage to push Santana’s original objective out of her mind.

The acquaintance eventually left, taking the conversation with her, and Santana took a deep breath.

“Brittany, there’s something I’d like to say to you.”

Brittany tilted her head, smiled in a way that was almost happy and genuine, and leaned forwards. “Do you want to leave together tonight, too?”

Her meaning would have been obvious anyway, but the hand she laid down just a few inches above Santana’s knee made it just a little bit more blatant.

Santana took a deep breath. She wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted, not for a third time. “No.”

Brittany’s face fell, and she suddenly looked a lot like she was about to cry.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand away. “I thought you wanted to spend time with me.”

“I do,” Santana reached for her retreating hand, trapping it between both of hers. “I do want to spend time with you, just not- Not doing that, okay?”

Brittany looked away. “But that’s all anyone ever spends time with me for.”

“I do!” She looked around, but it didn’t look like her raised voice had drawn any attention to them. In fact, the tables around them were notably deserted. It wasn’t the ideal place to have such a private conversation, but Santana doubted such a thing as an ideal place really existed. And in any case, considering what Brittany seemed to think, asking to see her in private might not have gone so well. “I like you, so much, and if it was up to me, I’d still be your friend at least.”

Brittany looked away, her lower lip protruding like it sometimes did when she was holding back tears.

Santana took a deep breath, reached for Brittany’s hand and held it gently.

“I’m so sorry for what I did,” she said. “And I want you to know that it was real for me too, towards the end. I should have told you immediately when I realised that you didn’t know, but I let Schuester cloud my better judgement. And I definitely should have told you about it before we had sex that night.” Brittany shivered a little but didn’t pull her hand away from Santana’s or even seem to want to. That was good enough for Santana to go on. “I was going to, I spent the whole day after my parents left thinking of a way to bring it up, and I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t. But Brittany, I also want you to know that I didn’t- what we did that night, it wasn’t because that’s all you’d ever be wanted for, or because it was just convenient. I wanted to do it with you because I-”

She wanted to end it with “love you”, but she wasn’t quite sure if it would be rude to push such a loaded word in there in the middle of trying to convince Brittany. She was done with manipulating Brittany, or letting her be manipulated without stepping in.

“That part was maybe true,” Brittany said quietly. “Was it difficult to separate the truth from all the lies?”

Santana felt her heart break all over again. “I didn’t lie very much, aside from the huge one. Everything I told you about me was true.”

“But your heart lied to me.” Brittany pulled her lower lip into her mouth and bit on it.

Santana forced the sigh to come out as a long, drawn-out breath. “It did. In the beginning. I meant what I said the morning you told me to go, Brittany. I wasn’t lying then. I said it all wrong and probably hurt you even more, and I’m sorry for that, too, but I was not lying.”

Brittany looked at her then, tilted her head and examined Santana’s features like she could see the truth in Santana’s face. Maybe she could, Santana thought. If anyone would have such a power, it would probably be someone like Brittany.

“I think I believe you,” Brittany said, her shoulders dropping. She looked a lot like she just wanted to pull her feet up against her body and disappear into a small cocoon. “But I’m still really hurt about it. I trusted you and you lied to me.”

“That’s okay,” Santana said. “I- I didn’t expect you to forgive me and for everything to go back to the way it was. I just- You’re worth so much more than quick relationships that end with you being trashed in the press, Brittany, or being dated just for sex.”

Brittany looked away, but unless Santana was very much mistaken, there was a small smile playing at her lips.

“Did you hope it would go back like it was?” she asked, not looking at Santana.

Santana forced herself to take another deep breath. “I knew it wouldn’t and that I didn’t deserve that,” she said. “But before- Before I messed up the second time and allowed you to fall asleep without knowing, I hoped it would stay like it was, or that it could go back to as it was soon enough.”

It had been a fool’s hope, she could see now, but that didn’t change the fact that that was exactly what she’d been hoping for.

Brittany smiled at her, just a little, before her expression grew sombre again.

“And what now? If it doesn’t go back to like it was then we won’t even know each other.”

Santana swallowed. “I know I hurt you, and I understand if you never want to see me again, but… I’d be honoured to consider you a friend.”

“Friends.” Brittany sounded like she was trying on the word. “I’ve never been friends with someone I’ve kissed, before. Except maybe in high school.” She paused for a moment. “I like it.”

Santana breathed a little easier. Suddenly she didn’t want to part from Brittany that night without any idea when they’d be seeing each other the next time.

“You can definitely say no,” she said, “but do you want to hang out sometime? Rachel was going on about this thing she did at the aquarium with kids, and apparently they had a tank where you can find all the colours of the rainbow in the fish.”

Brittany’s smile got very wide very suddenly, and Santana couldn’t even care about the fact that it was due to rainbow-coloured fish and not her, not when the smile was aimed at her.

“Do you like aquariums?” Brittany asked.

Santana bit her lip, unable and mostly unwilling to keep the contrite look off her face. “I like seeing my friends really excited and enjoying themselves,” she offered.

That seemed to do the trick. Brittany looked like she’d have jumped if she hadn’t been sitting.

“I’m free on Sunday,” she said.

Santana allowed herself to breathe a little easier. “Me too.”

—

Santana had never been to the aquarium; Brittany knew her well, it really wasn’t a place she would have thought of as a viable candidate for Sunday afternoon enjoyment.

Then again, that didn’t mean that she didn’t like it. Santana was not particularly into nature - her father liked hiking and she had childhood traumas - but she found that she could get behind the idea if it meant walking along neat corridors and looking at nature that was on the other side of the glass.

It might have been nice just like that, but the fact that she was doing it within one metre of Brittany, who kept turning around and jumping up and down from excitement and pointing at fish and stopping to read the information signs out loud to Santana, well, that just added an extra bit of enjoyment to the whole thing.

She was happy, Santana thought as Brittany pulled her by her hand towards the shark tanks. It felt a lot like a date, which had not been her intention when she’d proposed the outing to Brittany, and she was starting to think she had a lot to learn about what being just friends with Brittany would mean. They hadn’t really been friends the first time around; friends didn’t lie to each other like Santana had.

She’d like friends, Santana thought as Brittany came to a halt in front of one of the tanks, the wide-brimmed hat that she was using to hide her face from people almost falling off.

“They seem larger on TV,” Brittany said as they watched a shark swim past.

“That’s probably because they always film the larger ones.” Santana leaned on the hand rest, her nose inches away from the glass. “I always just see documentaries on the species that could and do eat humans, maybe it’s just not the same shark.”

“These are not the sharks we’re looking for.” Brittany almost pushed her nose against the glass; her elbow brushed against Santana’s arm. “But they still look nice.”

They did. Far better when viewed through a very sturdy glass, of course, but Santana could appreciate the dynamic shape of their bodies and the surprisingly frail-looking beauty of their fins.

“Yeah.”

“They remind me of you,” Brittany said. “Or they would if you weren’t right there.”

Santana bit her lip. “Because we’re both heartless and eat people?”

“No.” Brittany glanced at her and then quickly back at the tank. “You both have thick skin and think you have to take a lot because you can. And I’m sure your smile could cure cancer, too.”

Santana looked at a shark that had was just swimming towards them. Its smile wouldn’t exactly have fit on Miss America, but Santana felt flattered anyway. Maybe they hadn’t been friends the first time around, but she still knew Brittany. It wasn’t really important what she said; what she meant mattered much more.

“Thanks,” she said. “If I’m a shark, what’s your fish then?”

Brittany pursed her lips. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

Santana raised an eyebrow. “That’s hard to believe.”

“It’s true.” Brittany turned back to the sharks. “I always just thought that I was perfect as a human so there didn’t seem to be any point in thinking what kind of fish I would be.” She frowned. “You’re perfect as a human, too, but I spent a lot of time thinking what it was like to be you so I also had to think about what you’d be like as a fish.”

Santana took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was here as Brittany’s friend, and that whatever she’d tried telling herself in high school, friends didn’t kiss friends in public because their friend had said something nice or oddly sweet about them.

“Well,” she said, pushing the thought of kissing Brittany out of her mind, “in that case we’ll just have to go through all the tanks again to pick a fish for you.”

Brittany jumped a little, the hat almost falling off her head again.

“Let’s go then!”

The next time they talked about anything that was not the fish (Brittany knew a lot of trivia; Santana wasn’t sure it was accurate, but she really could not have cared about that when Brittany was whispering it in her ear), they were standing in front of one of the tropical fish tanks.

“I think if you were a fish you’d live close to a coral reef,” Santana said, watching as a school of colourful fish swam past and turned in the tank. “It just seems like the place for you.”

Brittany tilted her head and looked at the tank. “Maybe. The coral reef is really nice and colourful. But would I be able to see you if I just lived there?”

Santana didn’t know very much about marine biology, so she shrugged her shoulders. “There must be a species of shark that lives nearby. There must be.”

“But it might be a lame species,” Brittany said. “You wouldn’t be a lame species, you would be the best shark species there is.”

Santana smiled at her. “And what is that?”

“I don’t know. The one that will cure cancer probably.”

They looked at the fish for a moment in silence.

“I don’t think I would be a fish,” Brittany said eventually. “I would be a mermaid, so that I could swim wherever I want and go greet my dolphin friends and then I could come and have seaweed tea with you even if you lived in the open sea.”

Santana nodded. “You’d make a really good mermaid. You should make that into a concept for your next music video.”

“Mermaids can’t dance, though.” Brittany pursed her lips. “But if you were a mermaid, I could dance on the ground and then I could walk into the waves and dance you around in the shallow waters on the beach. That would look really nice.”

It would. It was far too romantic for whatever they were doing right then, and even if Brittany decided she wanted to go with the concept, her management would probably convince her not to do it with Santana because there were just all kinds of issues with them being seen mermaid dancing on MTV, but still. It was a wonderful idea.

“It would look great,” Santana said. “You really should keep that in mind.”

Brittany smiled at her. “I will. Do you think some mermaids are part sharks? Their tails always seem to be like really large colourful fish tails, but couldn’t there be shark mermaids, too?”

Santana nodded. “There could be. I mean, I doubt all of those tropical fish mermaids could dive very deep. It doesn’t seem logical that there wouldn’t be any mermaids in most of the waters.”

It seemed Brittany agreed.

“That’s probably where they live, anyway,” she said. “If they were all on the coral reefs someone would have seen them already. Deep sea mermaids are just our cousins that keep playing hide and seek but we’re just really bad at the seeking part.”

Santana thought back to the informational sign about the backlog on examining samples of potential new species that she’d read just half an hour ago. “Yeah, that seems plausible.”

They’d already walked the aquarium twice, and Santana glanced at her phone discreetly. Three hours was a respectable time for a friendly outing; soon enough Brittany would probably realise she had something else to do and they’d part ways.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I think I saw fish-shaped cake sold in one of those little cafés that we passed on our way here. That sounds like something mermaids would eat, doesn’t it?”

Brittany’s face lit up. “It does.”

They got a cake fish each and sat down in a table in a faraway corner to enjoy them.

“Cakes in the sea must be really moist, though,” Brittany said. “How can they make cake when they’re surrounded by water?”

Santana swallowed the cake in her mouth. “Maybe they do it differently from us. They must eat something, so they probably have something that’s similar to cake except that it works better underwater than cake would.”

Brittany seemed to think about that for a moment. “I guess.”

They were silent for a while as they both worked on their cakes.

“Anyway,” Brittany eventually said and swung her spoon in the air, “maybe it’s worth it at least a little to be just a human if you can have cake like this.”

Santana smiled at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.”


	13. Chapter 13

_Lord Tubbington was really mad about it though._

Santana snickered into her palm. She had no trouble imagining Lord Tubbington take the presence, however fleeting, of a rubber mouse in his home very, very personally.

_wll now u no how to punish him if u ever need 2_

“That looks amusing,” Quinn said from over her shoulder.

As embarrassing as it was, Santana’s first reflex was to hide her phone from view. It was only when it was safely against her side that she allowed herself to consider the possibility that Quinn had been looking at her and not at her phone.

“I’m texting Brittany,” she said and suppressed a wince. That made her behaviour look even worse.

“I guessed.” Quinn took a seat next to her. “There were no pictures, but a little bird told me you two ordered for two and took it to go just last night.”

Santana would have felt affronted by the fact that Quinn knew about that, but she was still feeling far too happy that it was Quinn, not Will Schuester, who was keeping tabs on everything that was said about her.

She acknowledged Quinn’s words with a shrug. “We have similar tastes.”

“Just don’t get either one of you hurt,” Quinn said, and it sounded a lot like she wasn’t speaking in professional capacity just then. After that, though, she made a very deliberately over-acted gesture towards Santana’s phone. “What are you texting about anyway?”

She could have just told Quinn it was about Brittany’s cat, but while it wasn’t really private at all, Santana didn’t want to make it public in any way. “Secrets,” she said while making a show of shielding the phone from Quinn’s eyes.

“Hmmm.” Quinn shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been meaning to start texting Brittany on my own, I guess I should do that and not try to live vicariously through your friendship courtship.”

Santana opened her mouth to protest at her word choice - sure, she would have been all for a courtship, but if her mishaps with dating straight boys had taught her anything besides that it was definitely not for her, it was that you really shouldn’t ask for a friendship while expecting it to turn into romance - but Quinn was out of the room before she could start commenting too colourfully.

—

“Do friends cuddle when they’re having a sleep-over?” Brittany asked, her fingers playing idly with a carrot stick.

“I guess that depends on friends,” Santana said. “We can if you want.”

It seemed that Brittany most definitely wanted; in a flash, she was at Santana’s side putting her arms around Santana.

“Your pyjamas are really soft.”

Santana looked down at them. When she’d suggested a movie night at her place, she hadn’t been thinking of a sleep-over, not exactly (she didn’t think Brittany would want to sleep over; statistically, they had very bad experiences about the other staying the night), but she really couldn’t say no to Brittany on her doorstep with a bagful of DVDs on one hand and a brand new set of dog-print pyjamas on the other that she loudly and proudly proclaimed she’d bought for Santana.

“They are.” She bit on her lip. “Do you think Lord Tubbington would approve if I ever wore them to a sleepover at your house?”

“I think the rubber mouse made him reconsider his life choices,” Brittany said. “I’m not sure if he’d leave them alone like I thought when I bought them but I don’t think he’d claw the kitchen table again.”

Santana felt a sudden lump in her throat at the thought of the pyjamas having already been in Brittany’s possession when they’d broken up, and how it must have felt for Brittany.

“Whatever you think is best,” she said. “I like having you here, anyway.”

True, it was for the most part because they’d spent a lot more time at Brittany’s house and therefore seeing Brittany here brought back less guilty memories, but the sight of Brittany stretched on Santana’s sofa like she belonged there was still doing weird things to Santana’s heart.

Friends, Santana told herself. They were friends. She was happy to have a sleepover with her friend. They were actual literal gal pals. She shouldn’t forget that.

“I like being here,” Brittany said and rested her head against Santana’s shoulder. “You smile more and your TV’s better than mine.”

Santana laughed, and at the last moment managed to stop her hand from carding through Brittany’s hair.

Gal pals, she thought.

The thought brought something else up on her mind, and she hung on to it, if only to get away from the thoughts that had seemed far too pleasant and dangerous for her to be thinking about.

“Have you thought about how you want to speak about this to the press if someone asks?” She winced after asking the question. “I mean, I definitely don’t mean that I expect us to talk about it, just- We’ve been pretty lucky that no one’s seen us so far.”

"Two Xs converging is the only maths anyone cares about,” Brittany said, and luckily she didn’t seem like the thought of discussing PR with Santana was sparking up unpleasant memories or associations. “You told everyone that I wasn’t a cheater.”

“I did. You aren’t.”

Brittany bit her lip. “I would go to an aquarium with an ex after a break-up if the ex was as nice as you. But it’s so obvious that no one believes it.”

“So we’ll just go with the absolute truth?” Santana settled a little more comfortably against Brittany’s side. “No one’s going to believe it, maybe, but they might if we say it consistently enough for a long time.”

“A very long time,” Brittany said. “Longer than volcanoes and the ice age together. But I really want to talk about you on those weird quizzes we sometimes do so everyone else just better believe us.”

Santana laughed gently, her nose brushing against Brittany’s hair.

“Yeah,” she said. “And it doesn’t really matter what they think, does it?”

Brittany seemed to consider her words for far longer than Santana had thought she would.

“No,” she said eventually. “It doesn’t.”

Santana wanted to put her other arm around Brittany as well and pull her closer, but while that might have been a friendship move, it definitely wasn’t an ‘I’m your ex who still loves you but isn’t trying to get your back’ move, so she made do with smiling really widely at Brittany and then turning back on the film she’d almost forgotten was on.

—

Santana resisted the temptation to brush her hair behind her ear. The stylist had done a wonderful job, and she wasn’t going to ruin it just because it felt weird having her hair like that. At least her dress felt incredibly comfortable. Santana took a deep breath, summoned her best red carpet smile and stepped out of the car.

She liked red carpets, usually, aside from those times when the interviewers decided to ask the dumbest questions. And she’d particularly like this one, she realised, because unless she was wrong, and she most definitely wasn’t, that was Brittany just thirty metres away from her rocking the parrot-fabric dress she’d been talking to Santana about just a few days earlier.

She’d known Brittany was coming to the same event, of course; they’d been brainstorming dress ideas just a week before. But just being at the same function didn’t necessarily even mean they’d get to meet each other. They could have been seated very far away from each other, and considering how things were between the two of them, Santana most definitely had not dared to even consider suggesting that they come together. It would have been a bad idea to come in the same car, no question; there were already rumours that they were getting or already were back together, and that was just from blurry photos that some lucky paparazzi had got when they’d left a restaurant together. Coming to an event hand in hand would have pretty much amounted to announcing that they were dating again, and much as Santana would have liked to do that, she most certainly didn’t unless it was true, which it would not be, probably not ever.

Santana made herself widen her smile instead of sighing. It would do no good to her to look like she wasn’t enjoying herself.

Plus, she thought as she gathered her dress and sprinted as quickly and gracefully as you can in seven-inch high heels towards Brittany, she really didn’t want another wave of ‘Brittany dumped her, Santana’s heartbroken’ rumours to hit the internet.

Brittany spun around as Santana tapped lightly on her shoulder, smile getting even wider.

“Santana!”

The interviewer she’d been talking to seemed to decide that she could definitely work with that, and asked a question about friendship that Santana would have thought kind of corny and annoying in any other day, but as it was right then, she was fine answering things that implied she and Brittany were specifically friends and nothing more.

If only the press could have ever decided to use an accurate label for her relationship with Brittany, she would have died a happy woman. She ignored the twist in her heart that demanded she acknowledge that she probably would never be quite as happy as she could have as long as she and Brittany really and truly were just friends.

“We watch a lot of TV,” Brittany said in response to a further question. “Not her series, though, because whenever that comes on, she hides her head in the pillows and that’s really no way to watch TV.”

Santana laughed. “I do think it’s funny,” she said as the interviewer turned to her, obviously searching for a comment. “But it’s just- I can’t laugh at the jokes I’m making, and I can’t really concentrate on anything because I keep noticing all the production details and stuff. I tried once, I really tried, and within five minutes I was remembering how the day we filmed that Rachel and I were in a hurry to wrap up because we had this interview to go to immediately after, and you probably cannot see it but every time I see it, I just see both of us trying to stop our eyes from going to the clock on the wall to check how much time we still have to get it right. It’s just- There’s no light ‘turn your brains off’ entertainment if you’re in it yourself.”

The interviewer laughed and made a comment, and Santana and Brittany laughed along before moving on to the next.

It was only when interviewer number four said something about it that Santana realised they’d essentially walked the whole red carpet interview photo path together. Quinn wasn’t going to like that, she thought to herself before quickly revising her thought. Quinn would professionally have no opinion on it because it wasn’t her problem to regulate Santana’s life, just the public perception of it, and privately she’d probably be happy for Santana because Santana definitely was happy about spending time with Brittany. It would simply make Quinn’s professional life a little harder for a while since what Santana and Brittany had just done was definitely a couple-y thing; they hadn’t done it when they were an actual albeit faked couple.

Santana wasn’t wrong in her feelings. The next interview she had, on a nicer than average night talk show, the host did actually bring it up with the faintest hint of gossipy tone.

“We’re just friends,” Santana said. “I know how that sounds but it´s still true. Sometimes people don’t hate their exes, it happens.”

She had to use all her charm and savviness to get the conversation away from Brittany again and into the awards show nominations in which her and Rachel’s show was rumoured to be a solid candidate for winning, but it was worth it, she thought as she could finally let her mind relax, the topic safely passed.

It was definitely worth it to have to reiterate to every single reporter that they were not dating if that meant that they were acting kind of like they were.

Gal pals, Santana reminded herself again, but even her own mind didn’t seem all that inclined to believe her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unscheduled surprise update because it's my birthday and I felt like it. It's thematically accurate by accident; they even mention birthdays once.

“Octopuses are the poets of the ocean,” Brittany said as she looked down at her plate. “Maybe that’s why they’re so delicious. Eating feelings always feels nice and poets have a lot of pain.”

“That sounds like it’s out of a poem,” Santana said and stabbed at her salad. “Beware or someone will stick a fork in you when you least expect it.”

“I’m always expecting to be eaten,” Brittany said. “I live in Los Angeles, everyone gets eaten here.”

Santana couldn’t argue with that, so she just pushed more salad into her mouth.

“Speaking of which,” Brittany said after a moment of silence. “Quinn asked me but she’s yours so I told her I should ask you first before I can.”

Santana tilted her head to indicate she was listening even though her mouth was full of half-chewed salad.

“She guessed I don’t really like Sue a lot anymore,” Brittany said and pushed a fry into the sauce on her plate. “And she has blonde hair too and sometimes pretends she doesn’t have a heart, so I guess it would make sense if she took over all of Sue’s other jobs, too. But I wanted to ask you first because you found her and no one likes someone who uses stuff without permission. Except that Quinn is not a thing, but there’s only a one-word difference anyway so I think it still stands.”

Santana swallowed her salad and so finally could speak.

“Quinn asked you to change management.”

Brittany gathered her fork full of food and pushed it into her mouth and only then nodded.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Santana said as quickly as she could.

Brittany’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly. “Really?”

Santana smiled at her. “Yeah. Her company’s great, and frankly I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how Sylvester definitely does not deserve to have you represented by her.”

Brittany was smiling when she looked down at her food and began gathering a new forkful. “Aren’t you afraid of too much convergence?”

Santana made herself not to reach over the table and take Brittany’s hand in hers. “No. I’d probably be a horrible shrew about division of property after a divorce, but we’re not divorcing, are we?”

Brittany looked up at her, a smile flashing on her face. “No,” she said. “We are not.”

Santana smiled back at her. “I have no problem sharing things with my friends,” she said. “And anyway, it’s a business decision, for you and for Quinn and her people. It’s nice of you to think to ask my opinion beforehand, but you really didn’t have to do it.”

“I wanted to.” Brittany gave her a grin before pushing her now full fork into her mouth again.

They ate in silence for a few moments until Brittany looked up from her plate.

“Santana?”

Santana couldn’t help the grin. She couldn’t kiss that stupidly mischievous and adorable smile off Brittany’s face again, but that didn’t mean that it still wasn’t infectious. “What?”

“I don’t think you’d be a horrible shrew about the division of property after a divorce. You just want everyone to believe you would because if you’re covered in spikes then no one will know you’re actually naked and soft under them.”

Santana looked away, but the smile refused to go. She pushed her foot against the leg of the chair to stop herself from brushing it against Brittany’s foot.

“Shhh,” she said. “Don’t tell my secrets out loud to the world, Sue’s probably installed secret cameras here and will try to blackmail me with them.”

Brittany laughed and brushed her foot against Santana’s. “I’d pay her off for you.”

“I’m sure you would.” Santana’s throat felt suddenly dry. “I’m sure you would, Brit-Brit.”

—

“I feel sorry for your dad,” Brittany said as she turned the corns on the cob around. “He really likes this thing even more than I ever will, and he’s not here to see that he can still use it.”

“I told my mother we’re friends again,” Santana said. “She was very happy, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until you get a phone call about them coming to see you.”

Brittany ducked her head, or then she just needed a closer look at the mushrooms; Santana didn’t really know too much about grilling so she had no idea if that was necessary.

“You can tell him he’s still very welcome to use it,” Brittany said. “It’s pretty vain, I’m sure it misses his adoration and compliments.”

Santana swallowed. “I’m sure they’d be happy to come see you again.” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to broach the subject - it would definitely never be a comfortable conversation - but she felt she had to.

“I told them everything. I’m pretty sure they’re both on your side, as they probably should be.”

Brittany bit her lip. “They’re your parents, they should always be on your side.”

Santana ducked her head and laughed. “My mother hugged me while I cried and basically told me I’m an idiot for doing that to you all at the same time.”

“Awww.” Brittany smiled. “That’s so sweet.”

Santana chuckled and focused her eyes on the corns on the cob. “That’s the perfect anecdote to sum up my mother, probably.”

“You should invite them here again,” Brittany said. “I’d like to see them again but it would be weird if I asked.” Her brow furrowed like she was thinking. “I think. I’m not good with knowing what’s weird and what’s not.”

Santana turned to her, her smile becoming softer. “I’m sure they wouldn’t think it weird if you asked them to come over to have lunch or dinner sometime.” She let out a quick laugh. “Actually, I’m pretty sure they’d both be too delighted by the invitation to even wonder if it would be weird or not.”

Brittany smiled. “You should still invite them. Your father is great at grilling and your mother is great at being great company.”

Santana smiled, hoping it wasn’t as etched with sadness as it felt like it might be. It would be lovely to have lunch with her parents and Brittany again, but she was quite sure she would be unpleasantly hit by memories and comparisons. The first time, she’d just been on the point of realising that despite being with Brittany, she was in love with her too. This time, it would be a mournful reminder that despite her feelings of love for Brittany, they were not together and were quite unlikely to ever be again.

“I could do that. I’ll ask them when they’d be free and get back to you with possible dates.”

She couldn’t see Brittany’s face because their food was apparently ready right then and Brittany rushed to get it off the grill and onto plates, but her “Yay!” definitely sounded enthusiastic, and Brittany was usually rather bad at hiding her feelings.

“It’s a bit cold here,” Brittany said as they’d divided the food between their respective plates and settled down to eat.

Santana shrugged. “Maybe. Do you want to go inside?”

Brittany beamed at her. “Your read my mind. I love it.”

After a few trips back to the grill to get all of the dishes, they settled in Brittany’s living room on the sofa.

Santana stroked absent-mindedly at the blanket underneath them. She could see the faint outline of her sandwich from back then peek out from under Brittany’s leg.

“So that didn’t come off in the wash, then?”

Brittany startled a little and looked down at the sandwich stain, pulling her foot away so that Santana could see the whole stain. “It didn’t.” Brittany pursed her lips. “Although to be fair I did not try very hard.”

Santana swallowed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave a constant reminder of me on one of your favourite throw blankets.”

“It’s okay.” Brittany smiled, but it was smaller than usual, like it was constrained by something she left unsaid. “It’s only one of my favourites anyway because it reminds me of you.”

Santana tried to conceal the sudden intake of breath Brittany’s words provoked.

“It’s almost like art,” Brittany said next, running her fingers over the stain. “The white blanket and the sandwich stain. If I forgot it at the Met the next time I’m in New York, you would instantly become a celebrated artist.”

Santana laughed. “Thanks for thinking about me, but I think I’ll pass. I’d rather you keep it to remember me by.”

Brittany frowned, turning to look at her. “Are you going somewhere?”

She sounded sad, hurt, and a little betrayed. Santana didn’t like that combination on Brittany.

“No,” she reassured her. “I’m not going anywhere, I was just joking.”

Brittany smiled at her, but it was still a little precarious, like she’d only needed a few seconds to believe Santana would be off again and would need at least several minutes to convince herself again that that was not the case.

“Besides,” Santana said, mostly to make that smile stronger again, “all artists wear berets nowadays, and if I wanted to seem French I’d need at least two baguettes, too, and they would be annoying to carry around.”

Brittany smiled, happy and wide this time, and Santana leant back, happy with the results.

For a moment, they ate in silence and Santana took the time to appreciate it. Maybe it wasn’t what she would have preferred, but she had truly messed up with Brittany previously. If she’d never get further than friends with her ever again, this definitely was not just a consolation prize.

She smiled and wondered if she should tell Brittany that. It might sound slightly stupid, but then again she’d always had the impression people didn’t tell Brittany how much they appreciated her nearly enough.

“Do you want more mushrooms?” Brittany asked, breaking the silence. “I think my eyes were hungrier than my stomach.”

“Sure. I’m not really hungry either, but they’re really good.”

They inched closer to each other on the sofa and Brittany pushed the mushrooms from her plate onto Santana’s.

“I missed this,” she said after another short silence. “When you were gone. I have friends but most of them wouldn’t just want to spend the evening at home where they can’t escape talking to me.”

Santana’s first instinct was to tell Brittany not to talk like that, but she bit her tongue.

“If they actually think that, then they’re definitely losing out. I love staying in for the evening with you.”

Brittany smiled a little. “You can stay the night, too, if you want.”

Santana smiled back at her. “That would be great. We could watch another movie? You always have the best commentary.”

Brittany beamed at her before she stuffed another cherry tomato into her mouth and began chewing.

There was another comfortable silence during which they finished their food.

“I’ll take these to the kitchen,” Santana said, reaching for Brittany’s plate.

Brittany gave it to her easily, and Santana ignored the tingling in her fingers where they touched Brittany’s. That wasn’t very gal pals of her, she reminded herself.

She’d never thought she could hate the word more than she already had.

When she came back, she found Brittany looking down at her hands, sitting cross-legged on the sofa. It reminded Santana uncomfortably of the morning they had broken up, and she prepared a light-hearted comment to make Brittany smile.

“I don’t think we’re very good at being friends,” Brittany said, and Santana’s light-hearted comment died in her throat.

Don’t panic, she told herself as her feet carried her to the sofa on autopilot. She didn’t reach for Brittany’s hand.

“What do you mean?”

Brittany bit her lip. “You are,” she amended after a moment of silence. “You’re a good friend. But I’m a lousy friend, I think, because I’m pretty sure friends are not supposed to always want to kiss their friends as much as I do.”

Santana’s breath caught in her throat another time, but this time, it was accompanied by a feeling as though gravity had suddenly lost its hold on her.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, moving just a little bit closer to Brittany, “if that makes you a lousy friend, then I’m a lousy friend, too.”

Brittany looked up, her eyes wide like she couldn’t quite believe what Santana was saying. Santana saw her mouth work as Brittany swallowed.

“If we’re both lousy friends anyway,” Brittany said, and she looked away, “we might as well do it, right?”

“Kiss?”

Brittany glanced at her. “Yeah.”

Santana heard the word, and it had just the time to register in her brain before she leaned forwards, her hand coming up to grasp at Brittany’s jaw, staying still for the few seconds it took for Brittany to push her lips against Santana’s.

It was far too desperate a kiss, especially in the beginning, to be very skilful. They were both kissing with far more eagerness than finesse, but Santana really was not in the right frame of mind to give that any thought.

It didn’t really matter what the kiss had been like, she thought to herself when she pulled away to dazedly look at Brittany, who was smiling like she couldn’t quite believe the last minute had happened at all. It was still going to be the best kiss ever, simply by what it implied about her and Brittany.

“Do you think we’d be better friends if we were also girlfriends?” Brittany asked.

Santana allowed herself a second, just a quick second, to marvel at how easily Brittany was able to put her heart out there, after the way it surely had been broken the previous time she’d done exactly that with Santana. She wouldn’t let her down a second time, she vowed to herself and reached for Brittany’s hand.

“I think so,” she said, wrapping her fingers around Brittany’s. “But for the record, I still think you were an excellent friend even before that. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise, I’ll fight them if I have to. I have razorblades in my hair.”

“I’m sure you do,” Brittany said, giggling a little as she pulled Santana against herself and into another, long and much slower kiss, her fingers carding through Santana’s hair at the same time. “I’m sure you do,” she said as she pulled away and her nose bumped against Santana’s.

“I love you,” Santana said as she settled more comfortably against Brittany. “I never lied about that. I always meant it when I said it.”

Brittany smiled, her hand still moving in Santana’s hair. “I’ll have to believe you if you say so. Girlfriends don’t lie to each other.”

Santana felt something weird in her stomach, remorse and profound gratefulness at the same time, and she pressed a quick kiss against Brittany’s shoulder.

“I’ll never lie to you again,” she promised. “And if Quinn tells me to do it, I’ll fire her before agreeing.”

“Quinn wouldn’t ask you to do stuff like that,” Brittany said and smiled down at her. “I can see her in my head with her lip all curled like it goes when someone does something she doesn’t like. She looks like an aunt when she does that.”

Santana laughed. She could all too easily imagine Quinn’s expression, too.

“She would go like that,” she conceded. “Bless her soul.”

They were silent for a moment.

“You can lie to me about birthday presents, though,” Brittany finally said. “I mean, I won’t mind if you don’t always tell me what you’re getting me or that I have to get to the bar because there’s a surprise party for me there. That would be okay.”

“Mmmm.” She felt like doing it, and she finally could, without anything, not even her own mind, stopping her, so she pressed a kiss to Brittany’s cheek. “That sounds like a thinly veiled plea to have me organise you a surprise party for your birthday.”

“No one ever has,” Brittany said. “It might be nice.”

Santana made a joke-y promise to deliver, but filed it away as something she really should do in her mind. She could, now. She was Brittany’s girlfriend, no caveats or secrets, and she could throw her a surprise birthday party if she felt like it. The thought made her surprisingly happy considering Santana really doubted surprise parties were all that they were cracked up to be.

“You should definitely forget about this conversation,” she said, her arm reaching around Brittany to pull her closer. “It can’t be a surprise if you’re expecting it.”

Brittany smiled at her. “What was it that you were talking about?”

Santana laughed and leaned down to kiss her. That, too, she could do now without having to think about it quite so much.

—

“Cuddling as girlfriends is a lot better than cuddling as public girlfriends or as friends,” Brittany said and bumped her nose against Santana’s collarbone.

Santana ran her fingers through Brittany’s hair and smiled. “Definitely.”

Brittany rested her head against Santana’s shoulder and sighed contentedly. For a while, they were just quiet, neither of them probably paying much attention to the film that was playing in front of them, until Brittany raised her head again and looked up at Santana.

“Did you really mean to tell me about the thing with Sue and Schue before we slept together?”

Santana took a deep breath. Even the serious question could not quite destroy the content mood she’d been in for a few days, ever since they had kissed for the first time in a long while.

“I did,” she said. “That afternoon, when we grilled with my parents, I realised that I loved you, and after that I kept meaning to tell you, and it just kept getting pushed back. Although,” she frowned a little, “I wasn’t all too disappointed that I kept not getting a chance. I knew it would change things, and what I really wanted to do was to go back in time and change everything so that I had never lied to you at all.”

Brittany let out a happy noise and let her head drop against Santana’s shoulder yet again. “I’m happy you didn’t change your mind again after that. I don’t mind that it turned out like this.”

Santana tilted her head to press a quick kiss to Brittany’s forehead. “Neither do I. But I’m still sorry for hurting you in the first place.”

“Only the people that really matter can really hurt us,” Brittany said, and it didn’t really make Santana feel much better, but it still did nothing to dispel that content feeling.

“I love you,” she said, followed by another kiss.

“I love you, too.” Brittany snuggled closer to her, her fingers moving across Santana’s stomach to play with the hem of Santana’s shirt. “And I’m looking forwards to talking to Quinn tomorrow.”

Santana raised her eyebrows. “Really? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you’re not utterly traumatised by our first attempt at dating and publicity, but- Looking forwards to it is a completely different thing.”

“We get to do it all over again.” Brittany looked up at her and smiled. “I mean, it was bad before, and now it’s going to be all okay, with Quinn who’s the world’s least evil management person and won’t tell you secrets she won’t tell me.”

Santana let out a laugh. It made sense, in a way. She couldn’t, and perhaps after all wouldn’t, erase the bad memories, but making new, better ones that closely mirrored them might make both of them feel better and get some kind of closure on that whole miserable period.

“If she told me something like that, I would tell you,” she promised Brittany. “No more secrets.”

Brittany looked up at her and smiled. It wasn’t a beautiful smile, not in the same way they usually were expected to smile beautifully, but it still made Santana’s heart melt. Brittany looked younger, more innocent, like there was not a care in the world that she was aware of and not a thing that could hurt her. Perhaps it was just a fleeting, stupid fantasy, but Santana hoped she might see that smile more often.

“Do you even remember what this is?” she asked, nodding towards the TV. “Because I don’t.”

“It doesn’t have you in it, which makes it kind of bad, but I guess you need to sleep, too.”

Santana laughed. “You should, too. We should both sleep, we have to be up tomorrow to actually talk about stuff with Quinn tomorrow.”

Brittany nodded and made absolutely no move. Santana settled more comfortably. She didn’t really want to move, either.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea why the chapter count decides to randomly reset to '?' sometimes, but I will keep changing it to 17 because that is the actual number of chapters I'm planning on.

“So,” Quinn played with a pen, “what are we going for here? What do you want to do? In your own words,” she added with a twinkle in her eye like she was enjoying the situation.

Santana hoped Quinn would never become a teacher. She would probably be great at it, but Santana felt pre-emptively sorry for all of her potential future students.

“Privacy,” she said when Brittany made no move to speak. She squeezed Brittany’s hand. “I think we’re done with relationship PR for a long while. If you could stop anyone from writing about it or commenting on it in any way whatsoever, that would be really great.”

Quinn laughed. “Sorry, but I am not quite that omnipotent. I’ll do my best, though.”

“Your best is usually pretty great,” Brittany said. “And I agree with Santana. I don’t want to talk about it, except with her.”

Quinn nodded. “We’ll get to work trying to come up with other stuff for people to write about you then. Maybe if we keep your schedules busy, that will keep at least a few people from writing fluff pieces about speculating about your relationship status.”

Brittany squeezed Santana’s hand.

“What should we say to anyone who asks?” Santana asked.

Quinn took a deep breath. “Tell me when you find something that works. But seriously, answer something, make a joke and change the subject. That won’t stop anyone from speculating, but at least it should lead the conversation away from it for the moment so that they have less to go on. Maybe that’ll make them less interested in speculating about it. You can always hope.”

“You’re not usually very hopeful,” Brittany pointed out.

Quinn flashed a quick smile at her. “No, I’m not. But I’ll get to work trying to find you something that would give you publicity but wouldn’t entail interviews.” She nodded towards Brittany. “Besides, you’re not so close to your planned release date for the album that you should drum up publicity, we can just try to narrow down public appearances in general. You, though,” her eyes turned to Santana. “We can’t quite avoid it, the awards season is upon us and we’ll need to keep you out there, as well as Rachel. I’ll keep that in mind as a consideration, though. In the meantime, feel free to rehearse your best anecdotes from on set to distract everyone about the relationship thing and to keep their eyes on the important parts.”

Santana nodded. “Will do.”

Quinn gave them a small smile. “Don’t worry so much about it, though. You can’t eliminate it, but it will be better, this time around. It won’t go down in flames like the last time. Oh,” she gave the two of them a stern look, “if either one of you mentions anything about why it failed the first time, about the real reason, I will personally lock you up and boil you for Thanksgiving next year. Understood?”

“What about-” Santana didn’t know what to call them. She didn’t find it quite so easy to talk about Ms Sylvester and William Schuester as Brittany apparently did.

“I’ll take care of them.” Quinn gave them a smile that made Santana hope she would never get on Quinn’s bad side. “You just worry about keeping your own mouths shut, I will see to theirs.”

They nodded. Santana didn’t know what Quinn had in mind, but the only thing she could bring herself to feel was relief that they wouldn’t be able to mess anything up in her life again, at least not like that.

—

“Let’s take five, people!” the director of the week shouted and Santana allowed herself to breathe freely. It was all fine and dandy doing a comedy, but at some point you ended up having to fake tears in your eyes anyway, and you couldn’t even complain because the script was good.

Besides, she added to herself as she made her way towards her chair where she had stashed her phone, it was refreshing to finally get to be explicitly a woman into another woman on screen, instead of just having no scripted love interest and working looks in for your own amusement and due to wishful thinking.

It was definitely better this way.

Still, Maria was a nice woman and all, but she would never make Santana’s whole world smile just by sending her pictures of her cat.

_He says we don’t need a chaperone this Friday_ , Brittany had written. _I only blackmailed him a little._

Santana laughed, sent three hearts and a few choice words back to Brittany and scrolled through her emails.

“You should come take some more cake before it’s all gone,” Rachel said, dropping down onto her chair with a plate in her hands.

Santana swallowed the comment that if the size of the piece on Rachel’s plate was anything to go by, Rachel and her hour-long pause from filming were the main reason the cake was almost gone, but she restrained herself. Rachel had often complained to her how so few events catered vegan cake so she never got to enjoy it; Santana could allow her have this one.

“Is this for another nomination, or are we having cake to celebrate every episode now?”

“I wish.” Rachel pushed her spoon into the cake and separated a large piece. “It’s for a nomination, I think. It’s a small one, compared to the Emmys, but it’s a nomination anyway.”

Santana smiled. She was an Emmy-nominated actress in an Emmy-nominated show. If she could only tell that to herself of a year ago.

“That was a great cake,” she said, setting aside her phone. Brittany was working at the studio that day, she wouldn’t answer during Santana’s break.

Rachel sighed. “It looked so good. I had to think of all the baby chickens that never lived so that it could happen so that I wouldn’t abandon all my principles for it.”

“I think you have a few profound misunderstandings about chicken biology,” Santana said, but Rachel wasn’t listening. Or at least if she was, none of it showed on her face.

“Did Brittany text you?” she asked, leaning towards where Santana had put her phone. “I always find that the first moments of rekindled love are always the most passionate, even moreso than when you’re first-”

“Please do not finish that sentence,” Santana said. She might like Rachel, however begrudgingly, but she would never come to love listening to Rachel’s tales of her love life, which had always made her feel like her own was simple and decidedly not convoluted, which considering her past with Brittany was a real feat. Besides, while Rachel had probably been dubbed a prude by every single boyfriend she’d ever had, she was a lot less reserved about the telling than the kissing.

Santana heard enough about the gross details of straight people’s love lives without intentionally subjecting herself to one of Rachel’s monologues.

“And how are you finding your second foray into Sapphic romance?”

She liked Rachel. That didn’t mean she didn’t very often also find her absolutely insufferable.

“First off, you do realise that when you add ‘Sapphic’ to it, it just makes you sound like everyone’s homophobic aunt, and second of all, we’re doing fine.”

Her tone was probably just on the right side of tart for Rachel to take the hint, because the next time she spoke, it was once more about the cake.

“I should probably get prepared to shoot again,” Santana said. “Just save me a piece for when we are done with the day.”

She hadn’t meant her words literally, but there was a piece of cake with a note signed with a gold star in her trailer when she got back to it hours later, and she decided she could maybe forgive Rachel. For this week, at least.

—

“It’s always worse when you know they mean well,” Brittany said when the subject came up that Friday on their date. “But at least she knows the way back to your heart.”

Santana laughed as she speared two raviolis on her fork. “There’s always that.”

“I almost baked you a cake while we were broken up,” Brittany said. “But then I got really sad thinking that maybe I had never been in your heart in the first place and so I didn’t and ate all the batter myself.”

Santana almost apologised, but after taking a second, instead pushed her foot gently against Brittany’s and said, “I never really allowed you to leave, so you wouldn’t have needed a cake to come back.”

That seemed to cheer Brittany up. “That works. I didn’t have any eggs, so I’m pretty sure it would have been a sad cake anyway.”

Santana smiled and brushed her foot more insistently against Brittany’s ankle. “It would have been more than enough anyway.”

Brittany looked like she was about to say something, but evidently changed her mind and focused on her soup instead, and when she next spoke, it was about oysters and stages and definitely not a continuation to the conversation.

Santana should have known it was not over, though. Perhaps it never really could be; they would always come back to those unfortunate months when she had been lying to Brittany. That would be fine, though, she thought, as long as the memory would lose its bitterness for both of them and simply become part of their history, painful maybe, but something that had made them who they were right then.

She wasn’t too surprised, though, when Brittany said as they were once again lounging on the sofa, “I almost asked you something at the restaurant.”

She took a breath, smiled at Brittany and said, “You could ask now. I would answer, definitely.”

Brittany looked down at her socks for a moment, waving her toes, and then glanced at Santana.

“Can we sleep together again? Metaphorically.”

Santana’s breath caught in her throat, although not quite so uncomfortably as it usually did.

“We don’t have to,” she said, weighing her words carefully. “I don’t- You said to me, the last time, that that’s all anyone ever wants you for, and that’s not true, not for me. I just want you to know that.”

Brittany smiled, but it was quickly off her face again. “That’s sweet, but I know already that you’re part sugar. I’d like to bring back some of the sauce, too, though.” She looked down at her toes again and then steadily up at Santana. “I just keep thinking that the last time we did it, I tippy-toed out of the room before the sun woke up and hid at the gym until I was sure that you were gone, and you should always wake up with someone because you’re so great no one should have the right to leave you in a bed that’s getting colder and colder.”

Santana swallowed. It made sense, in a very Brittany type of way. “To be fair to you, I definitely was not worth waking up with you the last time.” She bit her lip. “If you want to do it again, though, I would definitely want it, too.”

“I do,” Brittany said happily, her hand reaching out to grasp at Santana’s calf and trail down it in a way that was probably more mandated by her need to pull back to get back to a comfortable position than by any intent to appear alluring, but that was the effect anyway. “It’s kind of difficult to get to the mood, though, when your toes are poking at my hip.”

Santana laughed and pulled her feet away, only to crawl next to Brittany and settle down so that instead of her toes, it was her hands that were resting on Brittany’s hips.

“Better?”

“It’s weird,” Brittany said. “It feels exactly the same, but I like this one better.”

Santana laughed and tickled at Brittany’s side, giggling as Brittany squirmed a little and began laughing, too.

“I might like this one the best, though,” Brittany said once she’d gently managed to wrestle Santana’s hands off her sides, holding them by the wrists and stroking at them with her thumbs. She was still laughing when she leaned forwards and pushed her lips against Santana’s.

Santana sighed contently against Brittany’s mouth and kissed back.

“I love you,” she said as they pulled away for a moment. “Just- if you were about to forget.”

“You’re not that easy to forget.” Brittany darted forwards to peck Santana’s lips. “And neither is the fuzzy feeling in my stomach when you look at me, like I swallowed a cat and it’s moving like it’s going to claw its way out.”

Santana arched one eyebrow. “I’m hoping that’s a good feeling?”

Brittany grinned at her. “The very best.”

Santana brushed a lock of hair off Brittany’s forehead. “That’s all that matters.”

When they kissed the next time, Brittany pulled away to start kissing a trail down Santana’s neck, and Santana wound her hand in Brittany’s hair and let her head move however it pleased, her other hand reaching down awkwardly between them to tug at Brittany’s shirt. Brittany pulled away from her neck after a while, but only to push away Santana’s hand to replace it with her own, pulling off her sweater in one long, swift movement.

“You should take off your shirt, too,” she said with her most charming smile as she leaned back towards Santana again. “It’s kind of hot here. I never know how much heating to put on.”

Santana laughed and pushed herself off the sofa to start pulling off her shirt. “Smooth.”

“Mmmm.” Brittany nuzzled her head against the newly-exposed skin of Santana’s stomach and butted her head against the fabric as Santana struggled to pull it off her head. “I have to try to keep up a little.”

She pressed a kiss just a few inches above the spot where the cups of Santana’s bra met, her hand already on Santana’s skirt.

“Hey.” Santana ran her hand up Brittany’s back, playing with the idea of opening her bra but abandoning it as she pulled Brittany up for a kiss. “There’s no hurry. I’m definitely not going anywhere.”

Brittany smiled and kissed her for a while until pulling away with a mischievous smile. “But if we do it quicker we can do it twice.”

Santana laughed - she definitely wasn’t opposed to such a plan. “I’m staying the night, remember? There’s nothing to stop us from doing everything we want even if we go slower.”

“But I already won.” Brittany grinned at her, but settled once again against Santana to kiss her, long and passionate and at least one kind of perfect.

“Well, if you won, I did too,” Santana told her when they pulled apart again.

“I’d always wear ties if you asked.” Brittany grinned at her and leaned down for another kiss.

After some minutes, Santana realised her hand had travelled down to Brittany’s waist and her fingers were looped around one of Brittany’s belt loops.

Brittany had noticed it too; tilting her head, she gave Santana a teasing grin. “Can I take my trousers off now?”

Santana couldn’t help laughing. “If you don’t mind my hands getting the better of my head.”

“I like both your hands and your head.” Brittany demonstrated her words by pressing a quick kiss to Santana’s cheek and bringing her hand to cover Santana’s on her waist. “But right now I agree with your hands, unless that makes your head disagree.”

Santana let out another laugh. “At this point, my head’s pretty firmly in the game.”

“We should watch that together someday,” Brittany said as she moved her hand from Santana’s to the zipper of her trousers.

There was no graceful way to take off form-fitting trousers while lying on a sofa, but at least Brittany managed not to kick either off them while she struggled to get out of her clothes. The trousers ended up forgotten by the sofa (or so Santana thought; it seemed to her that Brittany’s last kick was in that direction) and Brittany settled victoriously on top of Santana again.

“It’s your turn.”

They both giggled as they tried to manoeuvre themselves into such a position that Santana could get her skirt off herself.

“You could just pull it up,” Brittany suggested innocently as Santana squirmed above her. “You would look great in all amounts of clothes.”

“Gotcha,” Santana said as she finally managed to get the skirt off and onto the floor.

“I really like your underwear,” Brittany said, glancing down. “I meant to say that earlier but then I got distracted by your lips because I like them a little bit better anyway.”

“Thanks.”

To the surprise of neither, Brittany was still quite eager to get the underwear off Santana, and after some more wiggling they were both completely naked on the sofa.

“The good thing about your bed is that it’s definitely more planned for this than this sofa is,” Santana said as she inched her way up the hand rest while Brittany slid down, laying a trail of kisses along Santana’s stomach.

“But you’re here right now, which makes this the best place,” Brittany pointed out, and Santana could hardly argue with that. Brittany pressed a kiss against the protruding bone on Santana’s hip, and then moved to the left to get to her thigh. Santana couldn’t help the low sound that escaped her throat, enjoyment of what Brittany was doing or dismay at the change of direction, she couldn’t say. Probably both.

Brittany looked up at her, grinning like she was enjoying herself and knowing exactly what her actions were doing to Santana.

“I really like this.” Another kiss to Santana’s thigh, this time to the top a few inches towards where Santana actually wanted her mouth.

“I can see that.” She had tried for a dry tone, but it came out haughty and just a little bit begging.

She tried to move her hips closer, but before she could fully manage such a thing, Brittany seemed to decide to take pity on her (or then she just liked going down on people; she did have a great deal of enthusiasm for many things so Santana shouldn’t wonder) and stuck out her tongue to lick up Santana’s vulva, tongue pressing in just slightly.

Santana let out another appreciative moan and Brittany repeated the movement. Soon enough Brittany’s fingers were there as well, this time pushing in slowly, gently, one by one and making Santana’s back arch off the sofa, her hips doing their best not to push against Brittany like she definitely wanted to do.

It didn’t take long for her to come at all, not with Brittany’s eager tongue licking at her everywhere that felt the best, and her fingers carefully and slowly but still with some rhythm pushing in and pulling out of Santana’s vagina. Santana didn’t even try to muffle her pleasure, only taking a few seconds to rest against the hand rest again before getting into a sitting position and tackling Brittany down onto the sofa, pinning her under Santana in a similar manner as Santana had just been under Brittany.

“I love you,” she said against Brittany’s lips before kissing Brittany leisurely, happily like there was no time constraints in the world.

The only constraint she allowed herself to remember - not that Brittany seemed to mind the moments she still managed to ignore it - was that Brittany had still not come, and that in mind, Santana slid down onto the floor onto her knees between Brittany’s legs, making herself room to get there as she fell down by keeping Brittany’s knees away from each other.

“You’re my favourite sleepover partner,” Brittany told her seriously as Santana smiled up at her. “Although I think I’m a pretty good one, too.”

Santana laughed. If Brittany meant what she thought she meant, ‘pretty good’ really didn’t do it justice, not even close.

“You’re my favourite, too,” she said and kissed Brittany’s bare stomach, enjoying the way Brittany’s muscles moved under her skin, obviously trying to stay still but not quite able to suppress the tremors that went through Brittany’s body at such contact.

“I know,” Brittany said. “It’s the best.”

Santana was nodding along as she lowered her head and teasingly licked at the side of Brittany’s thigh. She couldn’t tease for long, no matter how enjoyable Brittany’s slight teasing had been, and soon moved to repeat on Brittany what Brittany had done to her, with similar results.

As Brittany’s toes curled in anticipation of her orgasm, Santana almost pulled away and just sat there, admiring Brittany, but in the end she thought it better to gently lick and rub her way through Brittany’s orgasm, to give her the best experience possible. This would be the last time they had sex for the first time after getting together, at least if her opinion on the matter was asked, and she was not going to skimp on it, not with her time or with her effort.

It seemed that Brittany appreciated that, too; she slumped down on the sofa, spent but with the largest smile on her lips, beckoning Santana to lie down next to her.

“I love you, too,” Brittany said once Santana was indeed in her arms. “I don’t think I always remember to say it when you do, but I always think it anyway.”

“That’s okay.” Santana pressed a quick kiss to Brittany’s nose, followed by a longer, lingering kiss to her lips. She wondered if they could maybe stay like that forever, forget all of their obligations and engagements and just spend the rest of their lives, the rest of eternity, on the sofa wrapped up in each other.

It was a nice thought, at least until she felt her toes start feeling colder and colder.

“Do you think we should get to bed?” she asked.

“It’s a little late.” Brittany’s hold on her waist tightened. “I don’t think I can do it so soon again, I need to have a small nap before at least.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Santana said. “Just- Sleeping. My toes are slowly but surely starting to freeze.”

“Let’s go then,” Brittany said and gently pushed Santana until she got off the sofa and pulled Brittany after herself. “I’ve always wanted to know how it would feel to wake up with you.”

Santana pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Let’s find out.”

 


	16. Chapter 16

She woke up indeed in Brittany's arms, Brittany's hand clutching at her elbow like she had woken up during the night afraid that Santana might leave come morning. That was absolutely out of the question; Santana stretched her feet a little (as much as she could while not disturbing Brittany's sleep next to her) and settled back down as she had been on the bed, just enjoying the warmth under the covers and the feeling of Brittany's body against her. She even pushed her toes against Brittany's sock-covered feet (they'd undressed each other completely, last night, but Brittany still had her socks on; Santana wasn't quite sure if she should feel awkward or thoroughly awed, although she was as always more inclined towards awed), enjoyed their warmth and hoped Santana's icicle feet would not be enough to wake Brittany up, whether or not there was a barrier of one pair of socks between the two of them.

It seemed the socks were enough, since Santana could wait for quite a while before Brittany began stirring next to her, a good indicator that Santana's feet, now warmer than they had been previously, were not a natural alarm clock for Brittany.

Brittany woke up slowly, her eyes opening and then drooping closed again and then opening again for a second, closing for five, opening for two, and eventually she batted her eyes a couple of times and turned to smile at Santana.

"You're still here." She grinned. So close, it would have looked like she had no teeth unless Santana hadn't known any better. Santana had never seen anything quite so charming. "I was sure you would be, but for a moment I was afraid you'd try to make it up to me by making breakfast and I would wake up alone."

"You're not going to wake up alone," Santana said. "Although the breakfast is a great idea, I will have to keep that in mind for later."

"I would like it now," Brittany said. "Or maybe in five minutes, because right now I just want to enjoy our bodies together under the blanket wizards' guidance."

“Sounds like a plan."

Brittany kissed her gently, perhaps to pass the time, and Santana returned the gesture with equal tenderness, the sweet kiss however gradually turning into a giggly make-out session.

"We should think about that breakfast," Santana said half an hour later when Brittany was snuggling against her side, newly content and thoroughly sated, exactly like Santana if her face was anything go by. "Not that I don't love this, but it wouldn't be very romantic if it was interrupted by my growling stomach."

"Werewolves are in right now," Brittany said, but she rolled over and away from Santana, sitting up and getting off the bed. "Your growling would be really sexy. But then again starving is never trendy."

Santana stretched on the bed, considered Brittany's words and got up, walking to the chest of drawers where she had her own drawer (she could never think of it without smiling quite widely; she was such a fool in love, and she wasn't even sorry about any of it) and pulled out her dog-print pyjamas; while Brittany had already seen all of her, and multiple times, too, Santana wasn't really fond of lounging around naked. Goosebumps were never a good look on anyone, and besides she didn't only want the hot sex with Brittany but also the sweet domestic pyjama scenes, too, and if Brittany had been thoughtful enough to get her the pyjama, Santana definitely would have no problem in delivering.

They walked downstairs hand in hand, Brittany skipping like she was in a montage with some cheery song playing over them. Santana much preferred the conversation (they were making bets about Lord Tubbington, bets they would not be actually cashing in, except maybe in kisses, but it was still the greatest fun Santana had had in a long while although she couldn't quite explain why; Brittany just had that effect on her) and it was all she could do not to drape herself against Brittany's back when they reached the kitchen and Brittany opened the fridge to peer in.

Neither one of them was really in a mood to cook at all, so they just picked yoghurt and pieces of bread, dumped them on a tray along with jars of jam and went off to the living room, to their sofa (it was ridiculous to think of it as such, of course, considering that it was Brittany's and just a regular sofa, really, but so much had happened to them on it that Santana really didn't feel too bad about allowing herself to use such a qualifier on such an important piece of furniture, inaccurate and incredibly sappy as it was), and settled down to eat in companionable silence. Of course, they could have eaten in a much more effective manner had their companionable silence not been done under the blanket (Brittany claimed they might become cold; Santana kind of doubted it, what with their attire and the general temperature, but she was not about to shoot herself in her own foot, not when Brittany curled against her side so happily and fed Santana the first piece of bread), with the two of them both having at least one arm around each other at all times, but then again Santana was an actress and not a business major; sometimes, she really could not have cared less about effectiveness and things like that, not when she could have sweetness and romance and Brittany.

Brittany was a singer and a dancer, not an actress, but looking at her content face, Santana was quite sure that she felt the same.

"I think I am sitting on the sandwich stain," Brittany said after a while, as she was trying to eat yoghurt while one of her hands was firmly locked between Santana's back and the backrest of the sofa. "Do you think it would like the company of strawberry yoghurt?"

"Mmmm." Santana swallowed the bread she'd had in her mouth. "Could be. Sounds like a great snack, honestly. Grilled cheese sandwich and strawberry yoghurt. Count me in."

"I do love circles," Brittany said and rested her head against Santana's. "They never end. It gives me hope."

\---

"I've stopped counting the nominations you've been getting for the show," the interview host said, and Santana smiled at her in a way she hoped was even remotely modest.

"We've been eating cake almost all day," she said. "I hope there's an award for largest amount of unintentional crumbs in a TV show, then we'd be sure there's something that we will win."

The host laughed. "Along with the renewal of the show for a second season," the audience cheered; Santana had to squash the impulse to look behind herself to see if there was a cue card for this, "that must be pretty sweet."

"The cake certainly is." Santana laughed. She hoped it didn't come off as awkward. The host didn't seem to feel it was, and that had to do.

"Hope so." The host laughed along with her. "With so much sweetness in your life right now, you wouldn't even need Cupido to strike, or restrike, right now to make you a very happy woman. But from what I've heard, you're truly having it all right now."

Santana smiled. She could not really deflect the question, not like this, not without inviting rumours that might take multiple forms, many of which would not appear very favourable to her or to Brittany. She wasn't going to mess up this part again.

"I usually like to try and keep my private feelings private," she said, assuming a more serious face that she then allowed to melt into a bright smile. "But you're right, right now I am a very happy woman. I feel like I've been blessed from all possible directions."

"You must have a very involved fairy godmother," the interview said with a laugh, and Santana laughed as well before the host mercifully changed the subject and she didn't have to deflect.

Gosh, she really loved interviewers who could quit while they were ahead.

\---

"There really is a lot of cake," Brittany said, looking around. "I thought you were exaggerating to make me jealous so that I would order cake home, too, but there really is as much cake as you say."

"You can order cake if you want." Santana's hold tightened around Brittany's waist. "But I made a promise to never lie to you again, and I'm sticking to it. Except about your birthday present, you're going to love it but only on your birthday and not before."

Brittany flashed her a bright smile. "I can't wait. And I do trust you. I didn't really have to wait two hours in the Starbucks line yesterday, I was just exaggerating, too. It's typical of people."

Santana wanted to kiss her then, but she didn't think a corporate party organised to collectively celebrate all of their nominations was the time or the place. Later, she told herself. They would have all the time to kiss and more when they would be back at home, hers or Brittany's, didn't matter.

"Why are you doing it then?" she asked, gently nudging at Brittany's side. "You're the most extraordinary person I have ever met, there's nothing typical about you and that's one of the things I love about you."

Brittany smiled and leaned against Santana, but soon enough her face was overtaken by a very pensive expression. "I eat my toast like many other people do, with marmalade. Although I was always trying to emulate my greatest style icon, Paddington bear. But so have a lot of other people."

Santana reached down to squeeze at Brittany's hand. "Okay, there's some typical and ordinary things about you, and I love them just as much as your unique side."

"My unicorn side," Brittany said happily and jumped a little. "I love it too. And I love all of you, too, even your little soft side that you try to hide away from everyone even though your gooey centre is quite large for such a well-packaged piece of candy. Maybe especially your soft side because you don’t let a lot of people get through to it."

Santana let out a gentle laugh. This was one of those times when she had no idea what Brittany was saying but felt like she understood her perfectly anyway. It was one of the best feelings there was about dating Brittany.

In such a state, a question that had been on her mind slipped out, quite unexpected but definitely not something that she would have not been carefully thinking about.

"Will you come to the awards as my date?"

Brittany blinked, but she didn't pull her hand away from Santana's. "Which ones?"

Santana bit her lip. "Whichever you want. I meant the ones that matter the most, because I keep telling myself that there's only a slim chance that I'll win but there's still a chance, and if that happens, then I most definitely will not get to that stage in one piece if I'm there all alone, and who would be better to help me get there than my girlfriend?"

Brittany smiled at her widely now, and pulled Santana into one of those hugs that obviously would have been kisses if they had been somewhere else besides a rather crowded room with a lot of people who potentially had cameras.

"Of course." Brittany's eyes were shining, and Santana reached to her purse to pull out a tissue. Brittany might not have needed it yet, but it would come in handy in just a few minutes, because there was no way that Brittany would not be bawling in about that time, there just was not. "Of course I'll go there with you, and I really want to hug you tighter and kiss you and then ask Lord Tubbington to go away because it's awkward when he stares at us while we're making out."

"Right now, if we were making out I wouldn't even care if he was watching," Santana said, her fingers squeezing around Brittany's hand gently, her heart soaring like Brittany's hand in hers was the only reason she didn't absolutely fly off the face of the earth.

"You would," Brittany said. "You always care about who's watching, but it's okay now because you don't want anyone watching anything."

Santana swallowed her apology - Brittany already knew how she felt about that, and she'd promised to cut back on them to make it possible for their relationship to happen without that shadow hanging there constantly above them - and instead leaned forwards to press a quick peck, barely even a touch of her lips, to Brittany's cheek.

"We'll probably have to talk to Quinn about it," she said and laughed a little. "She'll probably want to give us advice. But right now, I'm just really happy that you said yes. And that you said yes to trying again, and even that you said yes to a blind date when Sue Sylvester suggested one for you, because without that, we might have never met and where would I be then?"

"You would be starring in a hit TV series and about to win a bunch of awards for it," Brittany said. "And I might be watching them because I've always liked looking at the dresses, and I would see you and I would notice you because how could I not, and then I would seek you out because you look like you understand what I mean when I say dolphins and unicorns, and then we would fall in love, slowly or quickly, I don't know, but we most definitely would, and you cannot argue with me about that because I am right."

Santana laughed. She really didn't want to argue with Brittany about it. Maybe she disagreed, because Brittany always saw the silver lining and Santana only ever saw the cloud in most situations, but she really just wanted to momentarily immerse herself in such a picture. It was a very beautiful picture.

"I can't wait to walk the red carpet with you," she said, whispering in Brittany's ear. "And I definitely don't mean all the articles that will be written about us, I mean I can't wait to lean to whisper something in your ear just to make you laugh and all those things that couples do on the red carpet, and hold you and-"

She lost her train of thought, momentarily just too focused on looking Brittany in the eye to get anything else done, even speaking.

"I can't wait for that either," Brittany said with a smile, and for a moment, Santana closed her eyes so that she would believe it was reality when she opened them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads-up, the last chapter will not be posted very quickly because mumbleholidalysmumblenointernetmumble. It's about as plot-heavy as this one was, that is to say, not at all.


	17. Chapter 17

This time, there was no Skype involved with their pre-awards show ritual; they were both in Brittany's ridiculously large bathroom, having washed each other's hair and having diligently prepared for the arrival of their stylists, Brittany pressing kisses to Santana's shoulders, them both giggling at the mirror and Brittany drawing a heart on the fog on it just so that they could laugh again.

All that made it distinctly easier for Santana to pretend like she wasn’t nervous at all.

Their stylists arrived and they got into their dresses and sat patiently as their hair and make-up was done, the room filled with pleasant chitchat and even more pleasant looks exchanged between the two of them.

Yet again, Santana reached out her hand to take Brittany's while they were sitting in their respective chairs, and Brittany squeezed at her fingers as she smiled and tried to keep her head still so that her hairdo wouldn't become a pancake (her hairdresser threatened her with that; Brittany seemed more intrigued than threatened, but she tried to be still anyway), mostly succeeding.

“It wouldn’t really matter that much anyway,” she said, chewing on her lip with a lop-sided smile at Santana. “Today’s your day, and I don’t want to share.”

They arrived in the same car this time, and Santana took a deep breath before stepping out. She would have suggested kissing for courage, but she really didn't want anyone to get a picture of it, not even a really bad one on their cell phone.

Even without the kiss, though, the red carpet together was a very pleasant experience.

There were always unfortunate questions, of course there were, but at least they now had two minds to come up with answers to them that would avoid the unpleasant aspects and redirect the conversation elsewhere, and Santana found herself breathing a small sigh of relief every time Brittany handled a question on which Santana's own brain decided to momentarily blank on. The small smiles she got from Brittany sometimes when she was talking led her to believe that the feeling was very much mutual.

Besides, just Brittany’s presence seemed to multiply the good moments.

“It’s coming,” Brittany said as an interviewer hazarded a guess about her new album. “And it’s going to be the best so far, because right now I’m the best I’ve been yet.”

Her brilliant smile at Santana left little doubt about how she meant it.

Santana was quite sure she would never get used to being pictured together, their hands on each other's waists or around each other's shoulders or holding hands or just talking. She felt uncomfortably exposed in a way she did not when it was just her, like the photographers could see into her through their lenses and reveal all her secrets to the general public. That was the price she’d have to pay, though, she thought as she took Brittany’s hand once again. She had something in her life that made her happy, and unless she locked it away and never spoke of it, she would have to let others see it.

It was far more than worth it.

"I've never had so much fun here," Brittany said as Quinn was guiding them towards the next camera point. "You always laugh at my jokes so I don't even have to worry about that at all."

Santana squeezed her hand. "Trust me, it's all my pleasure."

Brittany smiled in that way she had that implied she really didn't agree but wasn't going to fight because she enjoyed Santana's good mood far too much.

The awards show was like any other awards show, except apparently being more prestigious came with having more comfortable seats.

Then again, she had never had Brittany sit next to her before, whispering a running commentary in her ear and holding Santana's hand when Santana got nervous or excited, so she was not quite sure if she could ever think of it as a show like any other.

They were nominated in multiple categories, and Santana nearly jumped off her seat at their first win. She'd been anticipating it, to tell the truth, because while she definitely was not the most impartial observer, she knew the show was good and that a bunch of very important people thought so too. She didn't have to deliver speeches on most of the categories, though, because while the wins were associated with her they were not her wins, but she was fairly sure she was going to cry on her seat many times during the whole thing. She didn't, but it felt like she easily might have. She would have felt pathetic, but she was sitting directly in front of Rachel, which at least ensured that hers were not the most dramatic reactions she could observe. That helped a little.

Brittany was there for the whole time, and it was like she knew exactly when Santana needed someone to lean in and whisper a sweet joke in her ear to make her laugh and take a step back from the edge of the abyss of feeling far too much.

Her category came towards the end, and as it was announced, excitement and anxiety began to bubble in Santana's stomach. As far as she could remember, so far they'd won everything they'd been up for, and she told herself sternly that it was not a pattern that she should expect to hold, it had just happened like that and she was very glad just to have been nominated.

Brittany didn't comment on any of it, just took Santana's hand and gently drew circles on it with her forefinger. It had a calming effect on Santana, and she shot Brittany a grateful look.

All that calm left her the moment the presenter of the award opened the envelope and smiled at the audience.

“Santana Lopez.”

She could barely make it onstage, and she was quite sure she stumbled into at least four chairs on her way there, but there she was, standing and holding the award and trying to remember lines from the speech she'd sketched out with Quinn, just in case as she'd sternly told herself, it would feel supremely awkward to have written a speech for an award she didn't win but it would have been colossally embarrassing to have nothing to fall back on if she did, and fear of embarrassment had won out in the end.

She sought out familiar faces in the crowd, and found Quinn’s first, a small smile playing at her lips, knowing full well what Santana was going to say, her approval not obligatory but enthusiastically given anyway.

Taking a deep breath, Santana locked her eyes on Brittany’s, and Brittany looked right back. For a second, everyone else disappeared, and Santana felt totally calm. She looked away from Brittany and smiled her most winning smile at the whole crowd.

“Well,” she said, “I half-expected to knock someone off their chair on my way here, sorry anyone who feels like I tried to do it to you. It wasn’t on purpose.” The crowd laughed. “I would like to thank Emma Pillsbury and everyone at Beiste Productions for giving me a shot at this role, Quinn Fabray and everyone else on my team, the rest of the cast and crew who’ve made my work days an absolute delight, my parents without whose encouragement I might never have got this far and of course all the fans of the show. Without you, I definitely would not be standing here.” She took a breath, found Brittany’s eyes in the crowd again and this time, did not move her gaze away. “And last but not least, I would also like to thank my girlfriend who puts up with the long hours and me occasionally coming home smelling of hospital jelly. Thank you for being in my life.”

She managed to get down from the stage and back to her seat without tripping or walking into something so forcefully she'd knock it over.

Brittany had tears in her eyes and squeezed her hand meaningfully (Santana was quite sure the meaning was, "I'd kiss you if I wasn't so opposed to ending up on the front page of some gossip magazine") and Santana could only smile back at her, her own eyes worryingly watery once again.

"I meant everything I said," she said. "And so much more that I didn't want to say out loud in front of all of these people."

"You could give me an encore later when we're at home."

Santana let out a quiet laugh as the next presenter began introducing nominees for another category. "I will."

\---

She did in fact do it, just for fun, except that fun usually didn't end with both of them crying and kissing at the same time. They settled on the sofa again, continuing sweet, long kisses and probably offending Lord Tubbington who was hissing at them at one point when Santana could find it in herself to pay attention to something besides Brittany and was gone the next time she did the same.

"It's been a great year for you," Brittany said in between kisses.

"I met you over a year ago," Santana pointed out. "But then again, lying to you was not great so yeah, I've had a great couple of months."

Brittany was smiling when she leaned in for the next kiss.

"Here's to many more," she said and pretended to toast without a glass.

Santana obliged her, clinking their imaginary glasses and using that as an excuse to take Brittany's hand in hers.

"So many more," she said, and it might have been a playful joke as she moved in for the next kiss, but it also wasn't.

She was definitely in for so many more months and years of the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, commenting and just in general sticking with this story! I definitely did not expect so many people doing any of those things (I did not see my face when I first thought to check the number of subscriptions to this fic, but I remember the pure astonishment). You've been just amazing, and I cannot thank you enough.
> 
> (I would like to take this space to advertise the other chaptered Brittana fic I've been meaning to start putting up here, but I cannot do that because it needs a good deal of editing, which I haven't done yet but will at some point. Just saying that as a vague promise that this will not be the last you'll hear of me.)


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